President Obama is lifted off the ground by Scott Van Duzer, owner of Big Apple Pizza and Pasta Italian Restaurant, during an unannounced stop Sunday in Fort Pierce, Fla.
Originally published on Tue September 11, 2012 3:19 pm
Getting caught in a fight between two important allies is not where a president locked in a tight re-election race would willingly choose to be.
But that's where President Obama is today as he attempts for now to stay above the fray pitting the striking Chicago teachers against Mayor Rahm Emanuel who, in an earlier incarnation, was Obama's White House chief of staff.
Mitt Romney's rally in Mansfield, Ohio, on Monday began the way every political event begins. "Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and our country's national anthem."
This is always an uncomfortable moment for me. While I sat at my laptop, most of the reporters around me stood and put their hands over their hearts. This time instead of just sitting and working, I tweeted what I was feeling:
A woman recites the Pledge of Allegiance at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., on Aug. 29.
Credit Fenno Jacobs / Library of Congress
Schoolchildren in Southington, Conn., recite the Pledge of Allegiance in 1942, around the time the custom of placing a hand over the heart replaced the original hand position.
Originally published on Tue September 11, 2012 2:05 pm
When Mitt Romney uses the Pledge of Allegiance as a metaphor for all that's good and right with America, how many in his audience know that the two-sentence loyalty oath was penned not by the Founding Fathers in 1776, but a fascist preacher more than 100 years later?
Or that the original recommended posture was with a straightened arm raised upward and outward? Or that it was changed to the hand over the heart during World War II after the Nazis adopted the original as their salute?
Both major party presidential campaigns are focusing on family this election season. Some parents relate to the personal stories, but others say the candidates are just pandering. Host Michel Martin takes a look at how family is playing out in this campaign. She checks in with moms Leslie Morgan Steiner, Jolene Ivey, Dani Tucker and Gayle Trotter.
