By Robert Laurie ——Bio and Archives--August 31, 2015
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The Obama administration will change the name of North America's tallest mountain peak from Mount McKinley to Denali, the White House said Sunday, a major symbolic gesture to Alaska Natives on the eve of President Barack Obama's historic visit to Alaska. By renaming the peak Denali, an Athabascan word meaning "the high one," Obama waded into a sensitive and decades-old conflict between residents of Alaska and Ohio. Alaskans have informally called the mountain Denali for years, but the federal government recognizes its name invoking the 25th president, William McKinley, who was born in Ohio and assassinated early in his second term.Assassination? Who cares? Mount McKinley had a solid 98-year run as America's biggest micro-aggression. Obama has spoken, and he wants to show his "solidarity" with Alaska's indigenous peoples. McKinley is out. Denali is in.
Ohio politicians reacted angrily, although it wasn't immediately clear if or how they could stop it. Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-Ohio, said McKinley deserved to be honored, and invited his colleagues to join him to try to block what he called Obama's "constitutional overreach." "This political stunt is insulting to all Ohioans, and I will be working with the House Committee on Natural Resources to determine what can be done to prevent this action," Gibbs said....And, frankly, their anger is probably just as silly as Obama's painfully obvious pandering. The real outrage should be directed at politicians - on both sides of the aisle - who have failed to solve virtually any of the nation's problems. We're saddled with a President and Congress who, rather than offer solutions, have burdened the country with a whole slew of new issues. The U.S. (not to mention the rest of the planet) is in complete chaos, and this is how they've chosen to piddle away their time? The fact is, restoring the mountain's original name is no terrible sin. Many Alaskans already call it Denali anyway. The tragedy is that the ruling class gives its attention to non-issues while the country they supposedly lead is circling the drain. Want to be mad about something? Forget the name. Be mad that the D.C. intelligentsia is making it an issue at all.
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