Tag: cultures
Meaty matters? Barack Obama ate dog
Anybody who has gotten as far as chapter two of Barack Obama’s book, “Dreams From My Father,” knows that, as a child living in Indonesia, he ate some dog meat.
But now a Republican pundit — tired of Mitt Romney being bashed for taking his dog for a 12-hour ride on the roof of his car — has seized upon what he sees as a juicy nugget from Obama’s memoirs to fight back.
(That’s the thing about memoirs, anything you say in them can and will be used against you.)
“Say what you want about Romney, but at least he only put a dog on the roof of his car, not the roof of his mouth,” conservative blogger Jim Treacher writes in his column for the Daily Caller, DC Trawler.
In a further warning to “libs,” Treacher, with all the emotional maturity of a third grader, adds: “And whenever you bring up the one, we’re going to bring up the other.”
In the book, Obama, referring to his time living with his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro in Indonesia, writes:
“With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chill peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy). Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths. He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate: One day soon, he promised, he would bring home a piece of tiger meat for us to share.”
Obama was about seven and living in a different culture when he ate what everybody else was eating. Romney was an adult, with children, when he strapped his Irish setter, Seamus, in a crate, to the car roof for a 12-hour ride to Canada.
One wouldn’t expect a seven-year-old, being raised in an environment where eating dog is culturally acceptable among some, to take a stand against the practice any more than one would expect one of Romney’s children to stand up and say, “Dad, this is stupid and wrong, don’t do it.”
It’s not like Obama went out and killed, skinned, gutted and grilled a neighborhood dog — as Romney supporter and fund raiser Fred Malek was once accused of doing (before the charges were dropped against all but one of the friends with whom he was partying at the time). Cultural differences being what they are, eating dog in Pusan is one thing, eating dog in Peoria is quite another.
Repulsive as I find eating dogs, disgusted as I was seeing them caged, sold and butchered to order on the streets of South Korea, I kept reminding myself when I was there that I was visiting another culture.
A small and declining minority of the population still eats farm-raised dog meat. I would like them to stop doing that. But, last time I checked, I wasn’t in charge of dictating the customs of foreign lands. And I don’t think every seven year old in Seoul who eats what their parents put in front of them is evil.
As political ammo goes, Treacher is shooting blanks.
(Top graphic: rightwingnews.com)
Posted by jwoestendiek April 18th, 2012 under Muttsblog.
Tags: animals, asia, asian, barack obama, blog, campaign, car, conservative, crate, cultures, customs, daily caller, dc trawler, dog eating, dogs, dogs against romney, dreams from my father, eating dog, fred malek, indonesia, irish setter, jim treacher, mitt romney, obama, obama ate dog, pets, presidential, republican, ride, right wing, roof, seamus, south korea
Comments: 23