During a town hall meeting on September 20, Velma Hart, a former CFO of AmVets, told President Obama that she was “exhausted” from defending him. That media finger-snap-of-fate brought her national exposure. Any open-minded viewer, who saw the newscast, could see that Ms. Hart was not Obama-bashing during her 15 minutes of fame. She politely, professionally, and articulately voiced her opinion. In a CNN interview which aired on the day following the brouhaha, a poised Ms. Hart said, “I still believe in him.”
Nevertheless, just weeks after that town meeting, she lost her job and joins 15 million other Americans on the human scrapheap of unemployment. While AmVets claims that Ms. Hart’s layoff was an economic decision, and the White House at the time of this posting is mum on the subject, inquiring minds are speculating about the reason she was let go.
Among the lot of the recession-era unemployed, the majority were likely efficient and dedicated employees, who actually were dismissed due to recessionary budget cuts. Some within the multitude fell beneath the axe of shrewd employers with a personal vendetta (don’t pretend that it doesn’t happen), who seized the opportunity to fallaciously blame the job cuts of those whom they axed on the economy. And a number of people on the unemployment roster were ousted for miscellaneous reasons. The result is still the same. The unemployment list keeps growing.
So, in this climate of Big Brother muscle flexing, whether it pertains to surveillance cameras, free speech censoring, or pat-down groping, the question that begs an answer is – was Ms. Hart released from her job because of the current economic slump as was stated, or because she publicly criticized the president? If the latter is the case then working Tea Party members should be wallowing in a witch’s brew of anxiety, because Obama-bashing is their forte. If, to the contrary, some influential figures felt that Ms. Hart was too amicable to the Commander-in-Chief, then score one for the conservatives.
The matter of Hart is just one more issue that makes some arm-chair quarterbacks who are watching the political games place an index finger on the side of their head and say, “Ummm?”