Fox News attacks President Obama for giving props to Sitting Bull in his children's book

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from Patrick Goldstein at the LAT: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/11/fox-news-attacks-obama-for-celebrating-sitting-bull.html


November 17, 2010 | 5:30 pm

The Indian wars have been over for roughly 130 years, but at Fox News, no war is too distant in memory to go unnoticed, especially when it comes to opening up a new avenue of attack on Barack Obama.

. . . I'm already familiar with President Obama's new children's book, "Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters," which went on sale Tuesday (all royalties from book sales go to a scholarship fund for children of American soldiers who've been killed or disabled).

The book pays tribute to 13 groundbreaking Americans and the ideals they personified, including such familiar icons as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Jackie Robinson, Jane Addams, Neil Armstrong and Billie Holiday. Oh, yes, and Sitting Bull. Obama describes Mr. Bull as a "Sioux medicine man who healed broken hearts and broken promises. ... Though he was put in prison, his spirit soared free on the plains, and his wisdom touched the generations."

I take a special interest in Sitting Bull because my great-great-uncle, Julius Meyer, was an interpreter and trader who lived in Omaha from the late 1860s into the 20th century. Uncle Julius not only befriended Sitting Bull but took him to Europe as part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in the early 1880s. I have a photo of Uncle Julius with Sitting Bull, Red Cloud and a couple of other somber-looking Sioux chiefs. Sitting Bull was a warrior but by no means a bloodthirsty killer. If you ask almost any historian, they'll tell you that the Sioux took up arms against the U.S. government only after suffering through a series of broken treaties and under the threat of forced imprisonment for opposing the government's efforts to hand over the tribe's lands to gold miners and settlers.

Only in the nutty world of Fox News is there anything possibly controversial about celebrating a renowned chief . . .


read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/11/fox-news-attacks-obama-for-celebrating-sitting-bull.html

[RandySF]

1. "Obama Praises Indian Chief Who Killed U.S. General."

So now Native Americans are no longer American.

[pinboy3niner]

3. When GWB said, at a low point in the Iraq War...

...words to the effect that we're not losing, we're just not winning as fast as we'd hoped, I couldn't help thinking of Gen. Custer, who might have said the same thing at the Little Big Horn...

[Whoa_Nelly]

2. FAUX is starting Teh WONA! (War On Native Americans!)

Trying to frame the debate and failing that, going with the flow any backlash this can generate so they can keep reporting "Teh NewZ!", and scramble a few more brains in their Hate Butter.

gahhhhhhh! x(

[Rex]

4. For fucks sake! Is there NOTHING those assholes won't go after?

And then they change their headline, to reflect their STUPIDITY in the facts...just more bloated bullshit from Americas No.1 terrorist news organization! All draped in the flag and singing Old Glory! Why can't the Foxfucks be patriotic ALL the time? Why only when it is convenient? They sure loved Communist Chinas huge help in getting their masters elected into office. Not a word about that.

[devilgrrl]

5. Faux News would attack Obama if gave props to Joe McCarthy.

eom

[cilla4progress]

10. It makes the McCarthy era

VERY understandable, doesn't it? I believe we are in a new McCarthy era, with the idiot Palin playing the role of Joe. Americans came to their senses then -- with the prompting of a responsible media (this is when famous newsman Edward R. Murrow made his name). I hold onto a belief that can happen again.

[RandySF]

6. I thought it was obvious to everyone

A pillar of the right wing narrative is that anyone who is not white is not a real American, even if they are a people who were here first. Therefore, non-whites have no right to self-defense. So therefore, Wounded Knee = OK, Little Big Horn = bad. Why? Because at Wounded Knee, the white soldiers won.

[struggle4progress]

7. Mrs. Fanny Kelly was taken captive in July 1864 by a war party of Hunkpapa Sioux in Wyoming. During

most of the five months she was held prisoner, Mrs. Kelly stayed in the lodgings of Sitting Bull, the famous leader "as a guest," of his family, "and I was treated as a guest," she wrote.

"He was uniformly gentle, and kind to his wife and children and courteous and considerate .. with others. During my stay with them food was scarce more than once, and both Sitting Bull and his wife often suffered with hunger to supply me with food. They both have a very warm place in my heart." This surprising warm friendship with a woman who had every reason to hate and fear him, characterized Sitting Bull's interactions with whites. A teacher and missionary among Sitting Bull's people, Catherine Weldon, once described him,

"As a friend...sincere and true, as a patriot devoted and incorruptible. As a husband and father, affectionate and considerate. As a host, courteous and hospitable to the last degree" ...

Sitting Bull, like Martin Luther King, was a man of vision. "The great hope and purpose of his life was to unify the tribes, and bands of the Dakotas, (Sioux) and hold the remaining lands of his people as a sacred inheritance for their children," wrote his friend Catherine Weldon. "This fact," she maintained, "made him unpopular with all who saw in his policy and influence obstruction to their selfish schemes, hence they demanded his removal" ...

http://www.dickshovel.com/sittingbull.html

[bigtree]

8. nice account

. . . one of many fascinating and revealing recollections I've read of this ubiquitous man.

[Radical Activist]

9. Some people say this means Fox News celebrates the genocide of Native Americans.