| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| Krauthammer: Obama's modest about his country, but not about himself |
| 2010-07-09 |
| ...There was no finer expression of belief in American exceptionalism than Kennedy's. Obama has a different take. As he said last year in Strasbourg, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Which of course means: If we're all exceptional, no one is. Take human rights: After Obama's meeting with the president of Kazakhstan, Mike McFaul of the National Security Council reported that Obama actually explained to the leader of that thuggish kleptocracy that we too are working on perfecting our own democracy. Nor is this the only example of an implied moral equivalence that diminishes and devalues America. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner reported that in discussions with China about human rights, the U.S. delegation brought up Arizona's immigration law -- "early and often." As if there is the remotest connection between that and the persecution of dissidents, jailing of opponents, and suppression of religion routinely practiced by the Chinese dictatorship. Nothing new here. In his major addresses, Obama's modesty about his own country has been repeatedly on display as he has gratuitously and continuously confessed America's alleged failings -- from disrespecting foreigners to having lost its way morally after 9/11. It's fine to recognize the achievements of others and be non-chauvinistic about one's country. But Obama's modesty is curiously selective. When it comes to himself, modesty is in short supply. It began with the almost comical self-inflation of his presidential campaign, from the still inexplicable mass rally in Berlin in front of a Prussian victory column to the Greek columns framing him at the Democratic convention. And it carried into his presidency, from his posture of philosopher-king adjudicating between America's sins and the world's to his speeches marked by a spectacularly promiscuous use of the first-person pronoun "I." Notice, too, how Obama habitually refers to cabinet members and other high-level government officials as "my" -- "my secretary of homeland security," "my national security team," "my ambassador." The more normal -- and respectful -- usage is to say "the," as in "the secretary of state." These are, after all, public officials sworn to serve the nation and protect the Constitution -- not just the man who appointed them. It's a stylistic detail, but quite revealing of Obama's exalted view of himself. Not surprising, perhaps, in a man whose major achievement before acceding to the presidency was writing two biographies -- both about himself. Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. Obama's modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve. But it is odd to have a president so convinced of his own magnificence -- yet not of his own country's. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #4 ChuckK. + ANN COULTER are on a roll today agz the Bammer + Dems-Libs. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2010-07-09 21:43 |
| #3 Compare Obama with Jimmy Carter: for all his faults, Carter was never a denier of American exceptionalism, in part because, unlike Obama, Carter: -- spent his formative years climbing up through an institution whose mission is to defend and assert American interests, aka the USN -- actually managed a large organization of consequence, having to make tough decisions, understand and create and defend and fight for a budget that made some fiscal sense, aka the state of Georgia -- actually ran a business, met a payroll, managed employees and navigating volatile markets, gaining understanding of how wealth is created in this country How many of our current political class under the age of 60 have ever managed anything, met a payroll, served in the military, had a life outside of politics? |
| Posted by: lex 2010-07-09 13:47 |
| #2 God forbid that the focus on the President should be deflected by any focus on the country. |
| Posted by: Highlander 2010-07-09 13:25 |
| #1 To summarise: he's a knob. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2010-07-09 12:30 |