After the president left, reporters crowded around Hughes, doing one interview after another. People in the crowd handed her business cards and cash.
That was my desire. - Henrietta Hughes
Allow me to be the first to chastise Mr. Thompson for doing this. I know, I'm supposed to say, "See? Democrats make all of these promises and its the Republicans who deliver!" While this is generally true, this particular act is transparent political posturing on Rep. Thomas' part. What is he going to do the when the next looter in line asks for his house?
February 15, 2009 - Update:
A local news agency found that Miss Hughes sold a plot of land in 2005 for $47,000 and recently has turned down free housing and job training from local charities. She also receives a "disability" check of $800 monthly.
A liberal friend of mine accused me of attempting to "mislead" people by wording the above link; "Henrietta Hughes receives house". First let me say that I do the best that I can not to plagiarize the work of others no matter who the source may be. That is why you don’t see me copying and pasting entire news stories like some people do. Not that other people are horrible for doing this, I just personally try to provide all original content. Secondly, when I link pages I generally (but not always) copy the headline to the text of the link. So it is likely that at the time the headline used the same wording as the link. As we all are aware, news stores are updated over time.
To be perfectly clear, Henrietta Hughes was loaned a house by Florida State Representative Nick Thompson, essentially making Hughes a “house sitter”. However, as this “loan” was given free of charge, as a gift, I do not believe it was misleading to say that she was “given” or had “received” a house.
To further clarify, many mainstream media outlets and other bloggers referred to the gift in this way. Cases in point: Huffington Post - Henrietta Hughes Given Home After Telling Obama She Was Homeless and NBC News - Homeless woman highlighted in Obama appearance receives house. (My friend had also commented that it was more misleading to use the word "received" than "given", which in my mind closes the case that he comes from a very biased point of view.) If one is to accuse me of attempting to mislead readers, one must first also and more importantly accuse the much larger media outlets of NBC and the Huffington Post – among many others.
