U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s visit to Reliant Park this morning offered him a glimpse of what it’s like to be living in shelter.
While on the tour with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots.
The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"
They nodded yes, but looked perplexed.
Seems more than a little insensitive, but the context of the statement should be considered, as Harris County Judge Robert Eckles (who was on the scene with DeLay) points out:
"I don’t remember hearing that exchange, but it wouldn’t surprise me, and I don’t see what the big deal would be if he had said it."
"All of us are down here trying to encourage these kids and get them to focus on the future as much as possible. They’ve been through a severely traumatic event, and all of us are trying to encourage them by talking about their new schools, the new friends they will make."
"Many of us have tried to help them think about sleeping on a cot for a little while by making reference to ‘camping.’ So I just don’t see, unless your motivated by malice, how you could take those sorts of comments and portray them as ‘insensitive.’"
"The kids enjoyed the visit, I haven’t heard from anyone who was offended, and given Tom’s work with abused and neglected kids, I’ve got to believe this is someone trying to make much ado about nothing."
The media and the left misquoting and/or cherry picking a statement out of context to score cheap political points?
Couldn't be.