The Tolbert Report

I received President Obama’s Thanksgiving message Wednesday evening (on the jump.) It was not sent as an official Office of the President press release but through his Organizing for America list. It included a good positive message of being thankful for his family and for the soldiers fighting oversees. However, one glaring omission was any reference to being thankful to God. He ended the message by saying “With warmest wishes for a happy holiday season from my family to yours.”

This is certainly a far cry from George Washington’s first Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789 when he told the young nation that it is “the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.”

The Lord has certainly given me a lot to be thankful for this year. I am reminded everyday of the blessings of a loving wife who makes me want to be a better person and of two wonderful sons who bring me more joy than I thought possible. I have wonderful caring family, a great job, and more friends than George Bailey himself. I have made quite a few of them through these crazy new media that makes the world smaller everyday.

I give thanks today to God for all these blessings. I hope you will all take a moment today to say thanks as well.

UPDATE – Here and on the jump is Gov. Mike Beebe’s Thanksgiving message “Giving Thanks in a Tough Year.”

From President Obama…

Friend –

Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, Americans across the country will sit down together, count our blessings, and give thanks for our families and our loved ones.

American families reflect the diversity of this great nation. No two are exactly alike, but there is a common thread they each share.

Our families are bound together through times of joy and times of grief. They shape us, support us, instill the values that guide us as individuals, and make possible all that we achieve.

So tomorrow, I’ll be giving thanks for my family — for all the wisdom, support, and love they have brought into my life.

But tomorrow is also a day to remember those who cannot sit down to break bread with those they love.

The soldier overseas holding down a lonely post and missing his kids. The sailor who left her home to serve a higher calling. The folks who must spend tomorrow apart from their families to work a second job, so they can keep food on the table or send a child to school.

We are grateful beyond words for the service and hard work of so many Americans who make our country great through their sacrifice. And this year, we know that far too many face a daily struggle that puts the comfort and security we all deserve painfully out of reach.

So when we gather tomorrow, let us also use the occasion to renew our commitment to building a more peaceful and prosperous future that every American family can enjoy.

It seems like a lifetime ago that a crowd met on a frigid February morning in Springfield, Illinois to set out on an improbable course to change our nation.

In the years since, Michelle and I have been blessed with the support and friendship of the millions of Americans who have come together to form this ongoing movement for change.

You have been there through victories and setbacks. You have given of yourselves beyond measure. You have enabled all that we have accomplished — and you have had the courage to dream yet bigger dreams for what we can still achieve.

So in this season of thanks giving, I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to you, and my anticipation of the brighter future we are creating together.

With warmest wishes for a happy holiday season from my family to yours,

President Barack Obama

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Governor Beebe’s weekly column and radio address: Giving Thanks in a Tough Year

Each year, the arrival of Thanksgiving and the holiday season offers a moment to break from our daily routines and to give thanks for our gifts and blessings. We are grateful for friends and families, for the freedoms bestowed upon us as Americans, and for the natural treasures that surround us in Arkansas. Our strong communities, close-knit towns, and caring neighborhoods fill us with goodwill.

And this year especially, more and more of our people have needed that goodwill. A report released last week cited Arkansas as the state with the third-highest level of hunger in the country. Almost 16 percent of Arkansas families lack consistent access to adequate food, as compared to 12.2 percent nationally. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been measuring these hunger statistics since 1995, and officials there say the current national figures are the highest they’ve seen since they began keeping records.

When this news comes at Thanksgiving, it creates a sharp contrast to the good fortune many of us enjoy. This is a time when those of us who do have enough to eat consider how we might share with others. We always have the opportunity of donating food to a food bank or volunteering our time to feed others at a homeless shelter. These activities set an enduring example for our children and spread the generosity inherent in our people.

Although this year has not been an easy one for many Arkansans, we do have our own blessings to count. Our per capita income is rising, we have created thousands of new jobs, our people’s health is improving, and our students are scoring better on Advanced Placement exams. We celebrate these achievements, even as we recognize that too many of our fellow citizens do not have the basic necessities they need this Thanksgiving.

The eighteenth-century writer Edward Sandford Martin once said, “Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.” While it sounds simple, it is not always an easy task to step back and assess the gifts we have, especially in a season when we are bombarded with so many images of excess.

To our soldiers and your families, we give thanks for your service, sacrifice, and courage. We are thinking of those of you commemorating the holiday overseas as you work to safeguard the freedoms we enjoy at home. To those of you missing the presence of a loved one currently deployed, know that we stand by as friends, neighbors, and Arkansans who support you.

Let the entire holiday season be a reminder of all that we have to be thankful for and all that we can do to help others. And in a year that has seen its share of struggle and unease, let us remember that the strongest blessings in our lives are often the simplest ones. I wish you and your families a safe and happy Thanksgiving.