A lesson in "Freedom of Speech"

Last week, Rush Limbaugh (here) a right wing talk show host, expressed his wishes for Obama to fail as a president. He said that his success would mean that liberalism would win and as a staunch conservative he does not want that to happen.

While meeting with senators on Friday, Obama jocked about it, warning the republicans from listening to Limbaugh if they want to get anything done. The media did not like that Obama mention the radio host thinking that is exactly what Limbaugh wanted !!!

Now, I don't know if you realize what it means for someone to want for his president to fail and thus for the country to fail, which is unpatriotic? In other countries this guy would have been accused of treason and jailed if he does not just disappear :).

What is amazing is that obviously Obama was irritated by this guy since he mentioned it in his meeting, and that the reaction of the analysts was that he should not have done that!!

Amazing, right? In fact it is not, it is the culture of freedom of speech. In arab countries, such incidents won't happen soon because we will never dare talk like Limbaugh, even though in this case he is pushing it. But this is not the first time. Here is an excerpt from an interview he did recently that was released today (here):

"We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president."

:)) This is just food for thoughts. I think it is too late of our generation to witness such freedom in our country, but if we raise our children to be self-confident, allowing them to talk about anything, question anything and discuss any matter, not shutting them down anytime they open their mouth, we'd probably give them a chance we'll never have...... but I still hope they don't talk like Limbaugh though :)