Hollow Gesture or Just Pathetic?

Family Told Obama NOT To Wear Soldier Son's Bracelet... Where is Media?

NewsBusters - Barack Obama played the "me too" game during the Friday debates on September 26 after Senator John McCain mentioned that he was wearing a bracelet with the name of Cpl. Matthew Stanley, a resident of New Hampshire and a soldier that lost his life in Iraq in 2006. Obama said that he too had a bracelet. After fumbling and straining to remember the name, he revealed that his had the name of Sergeant Ryan David Jopek of Merrill, Wisconsin.

Shockingly, however, Madison resident Brian Jopek, the father of Ryan Jopek, the young soldier who tragically lost his life to a roadside bomb in 2006, recently said on a Wisconsin Public Radio show that his family had asked Barack Obama to stop wearing the bracelet with his son's name on it. Yet Obama continues to do so despite the wishes of the family.

Sadly, I'm not really surprised by this. After all, as I said before, his uh... bracelet is an affectation. Now, it is possible that Sgt. Jopek's mother wants Sen. Obama to wear her fallen son's bracelet. We're just hearing this from Sgt. Jopek's father who is no longer married to his mother. If not, Sen. Obama is being the typical politician everyone, save for his followers, know him to be. In either case, not remembering her son's name should be setting off alarm bells for Jopek's mother.