Here's the video:
What exactly is wrong here? Sen. McCain gently laid down the flower, while Sen. Obama tossed his onto the pile of flowers. Some, including Michelle Malkin, are claiming that this shows some kind of breach of etiquette. I'm not so sure of that.
It's not necessarily something I would have done, but I don't think he's being disrespectful. I think if you go through the footage of the families putting flowers into the pool of water, you'd find that quite a few did throw the flower in, and not do so in a manner that McCain did.
Some are also complaining about how many people Obama shook hands with and the manner in which he did so. I think that too is overblown. McCain may be more comfortable in handling these kinds of ceremonial duties, something that comes with multiple terms in the Senate. Obama clearly has less experience than McCain and may have been uncomfortable at Ground Zero, but it's something that his advisers can work on.
Yesterday was the first time I was at Ground Zero at any point during a September 11 commemoration, and it was indeed a very odd experience. It was unsettling, partially because of the somberness of the occasion, but because of the silence of the crowds (but for the Troofers in the distance), and the reverential manner in which many comported themselves. It's unsettling to know that so many were murdered at Ground Zero, that so few actually were recovered from the site so that families could bury more than just an empty casket, and that comparatively little had been done in rebuilding.
I think this is an overblown issue. I'm not alone in thinking that either.
There are far more consequential issues than whether and how Obama comported himself yesterday, all of which I find to be disqualifying: his relationship to Bill Ayers or Jeremiah Wright or Bernadine Dohrn, his redistribution of wealth policies (tax, tax, tax and spend), his flimsy foreign policy knowledge and prescription for national security that is anything but.
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