Obama Makes Early, Unflattering Appearance on Mount Rushmore

The Gaggle

RSS

Author

Katie Connolly

Ben Adler

Jonathan Alter

Columnist Page

Eleanor Clift

Columnist Page |
Email

Eve Conant

Howard Fineman

Columnist Page

Sarah Kliff

Email |
Twitter

Andrew Romano

Daniel Stone

Featured Postings

A GOP Plan for Deficit Reduction

9:00 AM, February 9, 2010 | Comments (5)

I've been hard on congressional Republicans recently for pandering to voters' ignorance by offering politically appealing but irresponsible slogans instead of a credible conservative vision of how to meet America's challenges, even those they harp on...

The Press Evinces Soft Bigotry Against Republicans─By Not Expecting Them to Govern

1:05 PM, February 1, 2010 | Comments (21)

Conservatives React to State of the Union With Sneers and Jeers

11:50 PM, January 27, 2010 | Comments (18)

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

Daniel Stone

Mount Rushmore is the kind of monument reserved for only the best U.S. presidents. The likenesses of only four—Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Jefferson—appear on the South Dakota rock structure. But environmental-activist group Greenpeace, both famous and notorious (depends who's asking) for its bold environmental protests, figured Barack Obama deserved to be there. Yet not quite for the reason you might think. Right next to the Lincoln sculpture, Greenpeace climbers unveiled a face-sized banner (65 by 35 feet) of Obama's face with the words "America Honors Leaders, Not Politicians: Stop Global Warming." The message was crafted to call out Obama for dragging his feet on global climate policy as he heads into the G8 policy conference this week in Italy. “While President Obama’s speeches on global warming have been inspiring, we’ve seen a growing gap between the president’s words and his actions,” Carroll Muffett, who heads Greenpeace campaigns, said from the scene.

The move was an impressive feat of daring. Newsweek has learned that a team of 12 experienced climbers prepped conspicuously for months planning for different scenarios to ensure that the action could be completed safely. The group also promised there would be no damage to the actual monument, which is solid granite. And all involved planned to spend several weeks behind bars.

Of course, the protest was aimed to get the attention of Obama and other world leaders, currently on the other side of the world. Asked whether the president or top advisers were aware of the protest and accompanying message, the White House had no immediate comment.

Tag(s): Barack Obama

You must be a registered user to comment. Click here to register. Already a user? Click here to login.

Member Comments

Posted By: TruthForward (July 9, 2009 at 7:22 PM)

PETA will get him for swapping a fly. lol

I think these groups need to exist. But darn they've been silly lately.

Report Abuse

Posted By: Pia1981 (July 9, 2009 at 3:56 PM)

Is this week the 'let's pick on Obama for everything he does' week? Let's see, on another article, a poster was disappointed because when Obama had tea with Putin he ate caviar from an endangered species whale. How was he supposed to know the whale was endangered? Now, we have this Mt. Rushmore nonsense. Leave the man alone. Sheesh.

Report Abuse

Posted By: TruthForward (July 9, 2009 at 7:59 AM)

They using Obama to make their point. The got some attention. But the masses may not understand their point. I guess the masses will start inquiring.

Report Abuse

Show All Comments (7) »