The John Sununu in Our Imaginatio

The John Sununu in Our Imagination

Seyi Oduyela

I have heard Dr. John Sununu’s criticism of President Barack Obama not once but many times. One of them was when he wished the President knew how to act like an American. After the first debate he called Obama lazy and now after his endorsement by Secretary Collin Powell, he came out to say that the endorsement was racially motivated.

This made me to do a little research on John Sununu. To my surprise, John Sununu obtained his PhD the year I was born-1966. This shows that he is well read but truly there is difference between knowledge and wisdom.

I discovered too that Sununu was born in Havana, Cuba. He has Greek, El Salvadorian and Palestinian background. 

What can be responsible for Sununu’s hatred for Obama?

Sununu is no stranger to controversy. He infuriated some as the only governor of a U.S. state not to call for repeal of the controversial UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 (“Zionism is Racism”). He later reversed his position on this issue and supported the Republicans’ pro-Israel 1988 platform.

When he was Chief of Staff to President H.W. Bush, Sununu was said to have taken personal trips, for skiing and other purposes, and classified them as official, for purposes such as conservation or promoting the Thousand Points of Light. The Washington Post on May 10. 1991 wrote that Sununu’s jets “took him to fat-cat Republican fund-raisers, ski lodges, golf resorts and even his dentist in Boston.” Sununu had paid the government only $892 for his more than $615,000 worth of military jet travels.According to The US News and World Report, May 20, 1991,  Sununu said that his use of the jets was necessary because he had to be near a telephone at all times for reasons of national security.

Shortly afterwards, Sununu exacerbated the situation when, after leaking rumors of financial difficulties in his family, he traveled to a rare stamp auction at Christie’s auction house in New York City from Washington in a government limousine, spending $5,000 on rare stamps.

Sununu then sent the car and driver back to Washington unoccupied while he returned on a corporate jet. In the course of one week, 45 newspapers ran editorials on Sununu, nearly all of them critical of his actions. At the recommendation of George W. Bush, Sununu resigned his White House post on December 4, 1991.

On the orders of the White House Counsel, C. Boyden Gray, Sununu repaid over $47,000 to the government for the flights.

However, the reimbursements were at commercial rates, which are about one-tenth, the cost of the actual flights; one ski trip to Vail, Colorado alone had cost taxpayers $86,330.

Now I can understand why Sununu does not and will never like Obama. These men are from two different worlds.

It is a war between a man of honor and great character and one with dirty, stinky and filthy record. Though Sununu governed New Hampshire for three terms he was disgraced out of the White House for abuse of office.

Were his comments about Obama racially motivated? Most people would say yes, but Sununu himself is an immigrant. He was not even born in the US. He is a mixture of all races. 

Sununu is an old man without any self-reservation. He is old enough to be Obama’s father but that didn’t deter him from calling the young Obama name from Un-American to lazy and more.

Does he think people have forgotten him and his scandalous time at the White House or is he just bitter that the guy with a funny name Barack occupies the White House as the most powerful man in the world when all he got was the head of White House Staff and he left the job with disgrace? Or maybe he could not become President because he was born in Cuba?

I don’t want to go into details on what he said about the first debate because as an old man, Sununu does not fit to be called or addressed as a Statesman. He is a liar, cheat and shameless bigot. Isn’t it shocking that this 80 something year-old man called Obama lazy in the first debate and praised Romney for presenting fact? For 90 minutes, Romney lied, denied all what he has been saying for 6 years and Sununu called them facts?

This is 2012; our generation does not have time for bigotry, shenanigans and unwitting criticisms. We expect people we see as elders to lead by good examples and not by hatred and senseless jealousy borne out of irrational thoughts.