Name:   phil - Subject:   The Truth Date:   8/3/2017 2:01:41 PM

"If I suggested I was surprised by the president's comments, I would be disingenuous," Boy Scouts of America president Randall Stephenson, who's also the CEO of AT&T, said in a phone call with The Associated Press.

"Anyone knows his speeches get highly political — we anticipated that this could be the case," Stephenson said. "Do I wish the president hadn't gone there and hadn't been political? Of course."

Hoping to minimize friction, the Boy Scouts of America, which is based in Irving, Texas, issued what Stephenson called "stringent guidelines" to adult staff members for how the audience should react to the speech.

"You can help make the president's visit a success by ensuring that any reactions to the president's address are, as we state in our Scout Law, friendly, courteous, and kind," the guidance said. "This includes understanding that chants of certain phrases heard during the campaign (e.g. 'build the wall,' 'lock her up') are considered divisive by many members of our audience, and may cause unnecessary friction between individuals and units.

"Please help us ensure that all Scouts can enjoy this historical address by making sure that your troop members are respectful not only of the president, but of the wide variety of viewpoints held by Scouts and Scouters in the audience tonight," the guidance said.

Stephenson has been a senior Boy Scout official through several of its recent controversies, including decisions to admit gay and transgender youths as scouts and to accept openly gay adults as unit leaders. He said he wasn't surprised by the negative reactions to Trump's speech.

"We anticipated there might be some people upset," he said.

At one point, the crowd erupted into chants of “We love Trump!” and booed Mr. Obama.

Yup - they knew what they were getting, Boyscouts loved it and liberals call it Hitler youth rally or third world authoritarians youth rally.

most liberals are probably not in the Scouts anyway because they are too busy in their plastic bubbles hiding from microaggressions and mosquitoes or never wanted to join such a group with a history of antigay/trans.