boomboomsroom

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

CNN’s Don Lemon called for former President Barrack Obama’s chiseled likeness to be added to Mount Rushmore last evening.  “I think, listen … if they are going to put someone on Mount Rushmore, considering the history of the country, the first black president should be front and center,”  he reasoned.

The anchor that he was handing off to, Chris Cuomo added,  “Add to Mount Rushmore. I think that’s first of all, it’s a more salable idea than the idea of taking away Founding Fathers.”

The exchange continued.   Lemon said, “So what’s wrong with all of us together thinking or reshaping our country so that more people rethink our country in the way we think and where priorities are so the country it belongs to everyone.”

Cuomo said, “Nothing is wrong with it.”

Except everything about the premise is wrong with it.  If statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln don’t deserve to be in town squares anymore, they why should they be on Mt. Rushmore?  If you can find a statue of Roosevelt let us know.  If Barrack Obama deserves to be on Mt Rushmore, start carving out the stone.

The conversations should be 100% independent of one another.

America strives for greatness.  America demands greatness.  America applauds greatness.  America builds libraries, museums, monuments, statues, and mountainside likenesses to honor distinguished men and women who helped America achieve its status as the envy (regardless of what some might want you to believe) of the world.  You might have heard that it is the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”

America got to where it is with little compromise. Why start now?

It’s easy to be average.  It’s hard to be excellent.

It’s great that America has now had a black president.  He was voted in as qualified by its citizens to lead us.   Soon enough it will likely have it’s first female president as well.  She will need to be deemed qualified to lead us as well.   May there be a day when these occurrences are commonplace.

But having a certain skin color or being a certain gender doesn’t make you great.  And being the first this or that doesn’t make you great either.  It just gets you noticed more than others.  Accomplishments and leadership of all of its people do.

So, did the four presidents accomplish enough for our country, in spite of any shortcomings, flaws, or mistakes along the way, to deserve to be forever admired in stone?  America said yes then.  Does it still say yes now?

Did Obama do the same?  America will, or will not, mull that over for years to come.

But don’t keep one(or four) up as a negotiation ploy to get another.

Can’t you just see Ronald Reagan shaking his head, coiffed hair and all?