By Alexis Stodghill on Jan 26th 2011 4:20PM
Filed under: News, The Economy
Velma Hart became a national media sensation after telling President Obama that she is
"exhausting of defending" him. Now Velma is back, having been sought again for fresh opinions on the president's performance in his
State of the Union address. As the media-christened representative of the comman man (and woman), she is now speaking with a much lighter tone about the president -- even calling him "poetic." The Daily Beast reports:
Hart says economic trends seem to indicate "he might be a little more right than wrong, but those trends have been a little slow to reach Main Street." So she was hoping he'd address "how that change can move a little faster" to reach people like her-a laid-off parent of two teenage girls and Desert Storm vet who has been looking for work since November.
"What would be really cool," she added, "would be if he talks about what we can do to help." She said that after her town-hall comments, a friend sent her a message that read "Chaos or Collaboration. Which do you want to be a part of?" Her answer is collaboration. She says as citizens "we all have a role" in making things better, but needs guidance on how to do that.
...
The asides to the audience caught her attention too. "They panned to the CEO of Corning Inc., which made me wonder-are they creating new jobs?" Obama's mention of a 55-year-old woman who had recently returned to school to gain new skills "didn't make me think of going back to school, but it made me feel good that the president is thinking of people who are trying to do the right thing."
What she found most striking was Obama's argument that the American people were adjusting to live within their means, and that they deserved a government who did the same. "Now that's just poetic," she said. Read the rest of this exclusive interview with
Velma Hart on The Daily Beast -- but I must warn you. Velma Hart, as honest as she is, does not really say anything poignant. She comes off like most of us are today: unsure of what to do and hoping the president can fix the economy, yet realizing it's unlikely that he can do it all on his own. But she does offer one thing -- a change in perspective. This time Velma spoke of wanting to pitch in and help make things better, even if going back to school is not an option for her. Hart's change in attitude about the economy is an important step forward that more Americans need to take.
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Top Foot-in-Mouth Moments
Barack Obama
"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest ... it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion."
Alex Brandon, AP
AP
BlackVoices.com
Top Foot-in-Mouth Moments
Barack Obama
"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest ... it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion."
Top Foot-in-Mouth Moments
Barbara Walters and Star Jones
"It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters, in the sunset of her life, is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer, humiliating an innocent family with accounts of her illicit affair and speaking negatively against me all for the sake of selling a book," Jones told Us Magazine after Walters told Oprah: "We had to lie on ('The View') every day because (Jones said her weight loss) was portion control and Pilates. Well, we knew it wasn't portion control and Pilates." Jones actually had gastric bypass surgery.
Top Foot-in-Mouth Moments
Rev. Jesse Jackson
"I want to cut his nuts out," Jackson said in a whisper on a Fox News Channel interview, adding that Obama had been "talking down to black people."
Top Foot-in-Mouth Moments
Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood
"There were many African-Americans who survived that war and who were upset at Clint for not having one (in 'Flags of Our Fathers' or 'Letters From Iwo Jima'). That was his version: The negro soldier did not exist. I have a different version." Lee said.
In response, Eastwood said: "A guy like him should shut his face. Has he ever studied the history?"
Top Foot-in-Mouth Moments
Bill Cosby's daughter Evin
"I always went to private schools, so I was surrounded by people like me. Not so much African-American, but privileged. I don't really have a connection to other people who didn't have my lifestyle."
Top Foot-in-Mouth Moments
Fr. Michael Pfleger
"(Hillary Clinton) just always thought that, 'This is mine. I'm Bill's wife. I'm white.' ... And then, out of nowhere. 'There's a black man stealing my show.'"
Top Foot-in-Mouth Moments
Joe Biden, The Next President?
When introducing his running mate for one of the first times, Obama said, "So let me introduce to you the next president - the next vice president - of the United States of America, Joe Biden."
Top Foot-in-Mouth Moments
Lindsey Lohan
"It's an amazing feeling. It's our first colored president."
Top Foot-in-Mouth Moments
Ludacris
"Hillary hated on you, so that b---- is irrelevant. ... " From the song "Politics: Obama Is Here"
Top Foot-in-Mouth Moments
Lipstick On a Pig
Sen. Barack Obama's reference to "lipstick on a pig" that followed Gov. Sarah Palin's comparison of hockey moms to pit bulls "without lipstick."
Top Foot-in-Mouth Moments
Because way too many of us sincerely believe that if President Obama does not single-handedly created millions of jobs and totally stabilize the economy within two years, he deserves to be
voted out of office. When Velma initially told Obama that she was "exhausted of defending" him, she was one of those people. It's ironic that
since losing her job and joining the uncertain millions waiting on a recovery, Hart has actually become wiser about the fact this is not all Obama's problem. The fact is, he can't fix it on his own. The populace needs to work harder, get educated, pay down debts and save. Corporations have to start hiring. We need to hold companies that ship jobs overseas accountable -- and more.
If more people can realize this, Obama might get re-elected -- and America might have a fighting chance to turn our fortunes around through our own positive collective efforts.
Obama is not our savior and it's about time that more people believed that. Thank you Velma Hart for taking the lead.
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Comments: (18)
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By: David on 1/26/2011 8:19PM
When is damn fool 15 minutes of fame going to end?? This women looked like a idiot when she talked about being exhausted defending the president. I originally felt that she was some teabag plant to try to embarrass the president. Rather she was just another dummy expecting the president to solve all the problems of our economy in 2 years.
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By: Gichaya on 1/29/2011 12:09PM
Unforunately, this woman thought that speaking out against Pres. Obama was going to make her look like an "above the norm black woman". I guess she thought that her statement was also the sentiments of other blacks.....NOT. She looked like a spoiled snob. Did she really think that she had the right to complain, just because she was having problems paying her children's tuition at a private school? NOT. I'm wondering whether if given the opportunity she would have complained to Bush about the same issue. Afterall, he created it.
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By: marie on 1/27/2011 4:16PM
Give me a "High-Five"!
These people kill me doing as you said, all for 5 minutes of fame to call-out the President, to make him look bad in the light, and then turn around when in the dark..your tongue is in your cheek!
So, I say, congratulations Velma Hart, we all know who YOU ARE NOW!
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By: stare k on 1/27/2011 4:35PM
David I agree . What di she and a few mor think ?
He is SUPERMAN . We elected a human not
SUPERMAN!!!!
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By: jane on 1/27/2011 6:54AM
I Could never take any thing serious that this Hart woman say'S .The fact that she would embarass the first black President on nation wide T.V just to appease her tea bagger friends, Was ludicris to say the least.
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By: Sheree Jiggetts2 on 1/27/2011 7:40AM
I wonder if her tea bagger friends are offering her a job. I hope she realizes its not the presidents job to fix our personal finacial woes. This economy was in the tank when he was elected.
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By: mike4ever on 1/27/2011 10:52AM
She is like most of the american people who was able to get everything they wanted fast and not worry about what they needed. We spent,borrow and spent like there were no tomorrow.
We let previous presidents give us the courage to overspend and worry about paying for it later. All the while the big companies and republicans was sending jobs overseas to continue to line their pockets before the bottom fell out.
We turned our eyes and kept putting people in office who was not thinking of really helping the people that needed it. We sit back and complained that the insurance was steady increase our premiums for the last 10-15 yrs and congress refused to do anything about it.
Now entered Obama who was given on a silver platter a hot mess to try to stop and clean up and we wanted him to do it overnight. People don't mind to get into a mess but forget that it is hard to get out of the mess after it has been made. He had to do things that people thought was wrong and still think is wrong but it is bring us out of the mess the right way, slowly. Of course, the groups that are doing the most complaining will be the first to really complain if the things they want to do fast, will put us back in the same boat we were in with bush and then blame it on the president for not stopping them.
This president knows no matter how much people complain that he have to move slowly in order for it to work and for the american people to realize that all good things do not come fast.
He is taking all the heat but he is getting things done and that is what is bothering the side. For one time someone is thinking and doing solutions the right way to get results. In the end when we are on the right path all the way people are going to be saying postive things and feel real stupid for all the dumb things they said and did.
It took for Obama being president to bring to the opening all the things that have been swept under the rug and it isn't pretty, but now we have to deal with it and it is a lot different from when we were fighting for civil rights. It is easier for people to twist things their way but it is also a lot easier to prove that they have talking untruth and more people are not afraid to put them on the spot. There have been so many things said that those who said them had to backtrack them and that really have put them on the spot.
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By: R. Stone on 1/27/2011 12:37PM
She is NOT allowed into the kingdom of Blackness, her weak attempt to insult the President on a national stage to appease White America will NOT be forgotten or forgiven. A god piece of advice, lay low you sell out, real low!
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By: Fashionedbygod33 on 1/27/2011 12:55PM
I agree with all of the comments. When I first heard that this lady got laid off, I just shook my head. I figured she would be singing a different tune shortly.
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By: Gia on 1/27/2011 3:41PM
It's like everything else that goes on in life, we must get informed before we make comments. I don't know much about Ms. Hart and her blight, but I do know that President Obama; can not solve the woes of this world. There are far to many of them and he is not God. Even God Himself said, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways THEN will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." President Obama is not God; and there is only so much he can do...stop trying to make him God; and responsible for every unsavory thing that is done in America. Standup and be responsible for your own children, standup and be rsponsible for the bad decisions YOU make in life, standup and do something, get a backbone and stop complaining.
There is enough money out there to take care of the needs of America, we just need to get it in the right hands. If you don't have children and someone in your family or perhaps a friend or neighbor does then help. This would stop the building of jails and prisons and put the money in the educational system where it needs to go; then all of our children would be better off.
Stop talking about the drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes and gang bangers. Form a community watch group stop with the silence that's killing our children and start making the RIGHT people accountable.
Go to the schools and start participating in our children education.
There are a lot of people talking about getting prayer back in schools. Now, I am all for that; but prayers starts in my house first before it ever reaches the school. So if prayers is never done in school; it is done daily in my home.
Yes, we must get the big corporations to stay here in the United States, so that the jobs stay here. But we have to also start to partonize our own black businesses and stop going to all other nationalities. Don't get me wrong I know some-times we do make it hard to partonize that black business. But if we all made a conscious effort to help each other, we would in fact be helping ourselves as well. Now, this doesn't mean we don't ever need to partonize other businessess, but just don't forgert about your own.
I applaud the courage it takes for President Obama to do and make the decisions he has to make daily; it can't by no means be easy. It also has to be difficult to walk that tightrope between the White-house and his family. We should all try harder to do whats best for this country and our families, this would make the President's job easier. There is no decision he makes along, it takes many others to sign for it to pass. The next time any of us start to pointing fingers just remember the ones that are pointing back at you. Remember to look at yourself and ask if I would like to be measure with a different measurement than that I am measuring our President or any one else?
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