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Barack Obama became the first sitting United States president to visit the country of Laos on 5 September 2016, when he arrived there to participate in a summit of Southeast Asian nations. On the first day of his trip, President Obama met with Bounnhang Vorachith, the president of Laos, then traveled the next day to Luang Prabang in the northern part of the country to tour a Buddhist temple and participate in a town hall meeting with members of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI). A wide range of matters were discussed during the lengthy question-and-answer session, notably the future of U.S.-Southeast Asia relations, the importance of youth participation in government, prospects for international trade agreements, the challenges of climate change and environmental protection, and global health concerns. Interestingly, though, as far as certain politically-oriented blogs and web sites were concerned, the only thing newsworthy that happened at the event was Obama twice uttering the word lazy in the context of addressing some of the aforementioned challenges. According to these sources, Obama out-and-out called Americans lazy in both instances. Here, for example, is how the conservative web site The Federalist reported his remarks: Looked at objectively, it's plain to see Obama's statements were misrepresented in both cases. Beginning with the first, the claim that Obama said words to the effect of Americans’ reluctance to embrace his favored environmental policies is a sign of laziness is flat-out false. As is clear from the full context of his remarks — which were in response to a direct question about reconciling the seemingly conflicting ideals of economic development and environmental protection — Obama was making the point that economic development doesn't have to come at the cost of the environment. When environmental destruction does occur, he was saying, it's because we aren't trying hard enough to figure out how to develop sustainably: In the second instance, Obama is accused of accusing Americans, because they live in a big country, of being lazy, isolated and ignorant. Once again, let's check the context. First, here's the question Obama was asked: And here is Obama's complete answer: The context shows that Obama did not accuse Americans of anything, much less being lazy, isolated, and ignorant. To be sure, he did say: ...sometimes you can feel lazy and think we're so big we don't need to know anything about other people. But to call that an accusation is a misrepresentation. In context, it was a folksy way of stating a plain fact: When you're a superpower it's all too easy to rest on one's laurels and pass up opportunities to engage with other countries — to one's own detriment. There needs to be more engagement between the U.S. and Southeast Asia would be a fair summary of President Obama's overall message to these potential leaders of their respective nations. One need not agree with that message, but in the interests of honest debate one ought not to misrepresent it, either.
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