Rumors and such truck

Don'cha just love rumors? I heard one yesterday that is so scurrilous I just had to share it. It seems that Barack Obama won't sing the national anthem because of those words in it about rocket's red glare and bombs bursting in air -- all that violence. If, the rumor goes, our national anthem was about sharing and flowers and bluebirds, he'd sing it.

Further, the rumor goes, Obama wants us to show the Arab world that we are really meek and mild, and if we do, they won't hate us.

There are at least three possibilities here: 1) the rumors are totally false; 2) the rumors are totally true; and 3) the rumors are partly true (or partly false, depending on whether you are a half-empty or half-full person).

In almost all cases, the correct answer is number 3. It is certainly possible that Barck Obama doesn't like to sing the national anthem (I don't either. That land of the freeeeee is a killer.) and, if so, that's a right he has.

And, I'm sure he'd like to have us back off killing mid-easterners.

On the other hand, if he's not a complete idiot, he will know that in the middle east, to appear mild is to announce, "I am a victim. Do with me what you will," and it is not coincidence that Arabs have been killing each other and any one else in the neighborhood for thousands of years. My mom, who lived in Afghanistan for five years, said there is a story there that Genghis Khan killed a million people in one day. She said the people told the story with some pride.

And as for the bombs bursting in air, surely President-elect Obama realizes that there was, after all, a war of independence going on, and they aren't fought with toothpicks.

Let's say, though, that both rumors are completely true. In which case, Mr. Obama will get a healthy dose of reality therapy in January. Or, he may be getting one now, since he's the Arab world's house n*****. In any case, he'd do well to remember the words of Mr. Roosevelt about soft voices and big sticks.