Was it Common Sense to Invite Common to the White House?

The republican pundit world went into a tizzy over rapper/poet Common being invited to the White House by first lady Michelle Obama last week. This even garnered enough media attention that it produced one of my favorite debate match-ups; John Stewart vs. Bill O’Reilly. It’s doesn’t take a bachelor’s degree to see who stood on which side of this debate.

O’Reilly claimed that because Common celebrated and sympathized with a known cop murderer (Joanne Chesimard, whom Common believes to be innocent) that he shouldn’t have been allowed in the White House to read poetry in celebration of Poetry Night. Stewart’s response was along the lines of “don’t you have anything better to spend your time on?” More importantly, he pointed out other famed performers such as Bono and Bob Dylan who also have controversial lyrics about authority figures and who have both been to the White House.

On Stewart’s own show, The Daily Show, he pointed out that Fox News (home to the O’Reilly Factor) doesn’t seem to be consistent with its dislike of contentious performers. He showed a clip of Fox News wishing rapper/actor Ice-T a happy birthday. Ice-T is the man who wrote a famous rap song entitled “Cop Killer” and who now plays a cop on television.

The White House’s stance on the topic was that while they don’t support every line of Common’s career, they do support the fact that he has brought poetry to those who may not have been exposed to it otherwise.  It’s important to remember that Common wasn’t invited in to work on the President’s foreign policy, or any policy for that matter. He was brought in to celebrate poetry.

Whether or not it was politically responsible to invite Common is still up to debate. What I don’t understand is how anyone is surprised. I mean, if the White House held every person who works there accountable for everything they’ve ever said, they’d never let Joe Biden in.