Idol Worship in the Oval

From Thinkprogress:

Bush Works for Lasting Peace in the Middle East:

This afternoon at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bush said he would “make every effort to achieve a lasting peace” in the Middle East. He got started right away. Here are some photos from the Oval Office immediately after the event:

Strangley absent from the photo-op was Idol finalist Elliot Yamin.

This of course could be a mere coincidence, Yamin probaby figured he could visit the President the next time the Idol's are invited. (Never mind the fact that this is the first time in five seasons this has occured, and apparently only happened this time because one of Idol Winner Taylor Hicks' Grade school teachers is now Laura Bush's Press Secretary).

Now, I'm not one to speculate - (yeah, right) but maybe Elliot was just sick and didn't want to give the President something he had. Yeah - that's the ticket. It probably had nothing what-so-ever to do with the current conflicts in the middle-east in Israel or Iraq. I mean, it's not like Elliot has any particular interest in those countries - except for the fact that his father Shaoul Yamin is of Iraqi descent, while his mother Claudette Goldberg-Yamin is Jewish-American.

Imagine that, an Iraqi and a Jew, married and having children (at least until their divorce when Elliot was 14) and then having one of those children become a finalist on American Idol. And better yet, that child having a chance to speak directly to the President of the United States - while both Iraq and Israel are at War - and missing it?

Methinks there's a big fat pink elephant in the Oval Office. Or rather - missing from the Oval Office. Elliot Yamin.

But then again, maybe I'm completely offbase. Maybe this has nothing to do with Elliot's choice, maybe he didn't decide to be left out - and that decision was made for him. Maybe it was the Secret Service, or White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten - or Turdblossom - they do have to protect the President from any undesirable persons, don't they?

Y'know - people with like bumper-stickers and stuff.

Or people who might ask embarrising or probing questions. People like Cindy Sheehan who just decided to buy a house in Bush's hometown, Crawford Texas. And rest assured that southern hospitality is already blooming.

"I wish she'd stay away. Crawford's a Republican town, and she's a dumb Democrat," Westerfield, a lifelong Crawford resident, said Friday while sitting on a bench outside a gas station on Main Street.

Heartwarming isn't it? She's only been camped outside President Bush's doorstep for months to ask one question "What Noble Cause did my Son Die For?" - and George has been ducking her the entire time. Brave man, that George.

If you or I were one of the "safe" Idol's who actually did meet the President, would you or wouldn't you feel the urge to ask Cindy's question for her?

Or maybe instead ask one of a half million other possible questions like "Mr. President...

• How could you endorse and allow torture by attempting to dodge the Geneva Conventions, don't you realize how that endangers our own troops? (Troops like Menchaka and Tucker)
  
  
• How could you authorize the Iraq War when all legitimate information pointed to Saddam already being disarmed?
  
  
• Even if you yourself disputed of the facts and intelligence data at the time (and have since been shown to be completely wrong), shouldn't you have erred on the side of caution and let the inspectors finish doing their jobs, rather than destroying the infrastruction of Iraq and causing the deaths of over 50,000 people?
  
  
• Is "Just Wait" really what you'd call an effective long term foreign policy?
  
  
• Is it a Civil War Yet when people start talking about a Coup against the Prime Minister?
  
  
• What happened to our 8.8 Billion dollars and can we have a refund since we obviously failed to buy Maliki's loyality away from his fellow Shia's in Hezbollah with it?
  
  
• Just how big was the federal deficit when you came into office again? Oh yeah, that's right - we didn't have one.
  
  
• Why's New Orleans still so fucked up - uh - a total disaster?
  
  
• Why do Donald Rumsfeld and Micheal Chertoff still have jobs? Do they have copies of compromising pictures of somebody? Did they forge the Killian Memos or the Niger-Uranium Document or something?
  
  
• How's that Social Security Reform Plan coming along?
  
  
• So, do you plan to wait to act until Israel has killed every living thing in Southern Lebanon - or just most of the children?
  
  
• Now that your Vice President's Chief of Staff has been indicted for perjury, your head of Domestic Procurement prosecuted for bribery and corruption and your Chief Domestic Policy Advisor arrested for shoplifting - do you still think you've brought "honor and integrity" back to the White House?
  
  
• Just what kind of shoes did Condi buy while the people of New Orleans were drowning?
  
  
• If the New York Times should be prosecuted for revealing (already public) information about the Bank Data program, what exactly should happen to columnist Robert Novak for revealing an undercover CIA agent and her entire operation which was working to prevent Iran from obtaining a Nuclear Bomb?
  
  
• Why haven't we caught or killed Osama Bin Laden yet? I thought we were gonna "Smoke 'em out"!
  
  
• So do you think the Rapture has already started, or we still have a couple more years for our stocks to mature?
  
  
• Isn't it great, now that Zarqawi is dead - our troops can start coming home (as long as they call "home" Baghdad, that is) ?
  
  
• Hey, I forgot this phone number of this girl I called once on Saturday, November 21st 2004 at 1:37 am Pacific Standard Time - could have the NSA get that back for me?

Do you think maybe the reason he did meet with Idol's, besides doing a big favor for Laura, is the fact he had assurances that they wouldn't ask those kinds of questions?

But how could you not? How could let an oppurtunity to get an answer, any answer - even one of Bush's typical bullshit answers like "Freedom is on the March" - slip away?

I don't know if Elliot had a cold that day, if he had strong enough feelings that he didn't want to be in the proximity of George Bush, or the reverse - members of the Bush Adminstration felt he couldn't be trusted not to pressure or embarass the President - I just don't know.

I'm just saying, whether you approve or disagree with George Bush's Presidency, if you had a chance to speak your mind directly to the man - even in the middle of a photo-op of this type - would you pass it up?

I know I wouldn't.

What would you ask him?

Vyan

Update: People Magazine (not a News source I generally frequent) has a report up that indicates that Yamin simply overslept and only missed the photo session.

Elliott Yamin missed the first part of the visit with the President. About five minutes after it started, he was seen racing down the hall toward the Oval Office, wiping his brow and saying, "Phew!" "He was sleeping!" Young explains, adding that the Idols - who have been on the "American Idols Live" tour since July 6 - arrived in Washington, D.C., at 5:30 a.m., and that some of them have been having a hard time sleeping on the bus that takes them from city to city.

Leave it to AI to be banal to the end - that is if you believe this "story" from People. /snark.