printCharles Krauthammer on Obama’s hopeless audacity:
“Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast — a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins — would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.
What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final “tear down this wall” liquidation. When President Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.
Who is Obama representing? And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what George Bush 41 — who presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall but modestly declined to go there for a victory lap — called “a Europe whole and free”?
Does Obama not see the incongruity? It’s as if a German pol took a campaign trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue for a campaign speech. (The Germans have now gently nudged Obama into looking at other venues.)
Americans are beginning to notice Obama’s elevated opinion of himself. There’s nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?”
Read the rest here.
Update (July 24): “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for”: This Obama mumbo-jumbo is obscurantism at its worse. Incoherent. Gibberish. Oprah’s America is lapping it up. The Queen of Kitsch did choose him, after all.
Finally some good coverage of Obama. Let’s see if I get his accomplishments correct: 1) His white mom got knocked up by a black guy. 2) He went to a private prep on the mean streets of Honolulu. 3) He skated into an Ivy league school where he had a remarkably unremarkable scholastic record. 4) He married a woman who skated into her own Ivy league school with plenty of affirmative action help whose senior thesis consisted of bashing on whitey. 5) He worked for a rinky dink non-profit community action group where he accomplished nothing of importance. 6) He got elected to the state senate and did nothing much of importance. 7) He got elected to US Senate after his opponent that would have beat him got washed out at the last minute in a sex scandal. 7) In the US Senate he did nothing of importance either. 8) Runs for president on a platform of Hope and assuaging white guilt.
Did I miss anything?
Too much too fast. He’s defeated a strong (and reviled) politician in HRC. No one thought he could beat her six months ago. Lt. Comdr. Queeg, a weak and troubled man, is his opponent for president. It all looks possible to a young man who everyone called “Barry” two short years ago. It’s a prescription for hubris. His fall will be as meteoric as his rise. Hopefully the country won’t have to go with him.
Twenty years from now fathers will tell their sons the parable of Barry and the dangers of hubris.
While Krauthammer hit an interesting point about Obama’s ego, what were JFK’s qualifications beyond good looks, a gift of speech, and a filthy rich dad? And Bush II’s qualifications beyond daddy? And didn’t FDR trade on the Roosevelt name in his way to the top? So at least give Obama credit that he was not born to some aristocracy/plutocracy.
As for so-called accomplishments – the less the better. I’ll take a Gerald Ford over an FDR, Wilson, or Lincoln any day of the week. Does Krauthammer’s analysis count as a recommendation for “MC-CAIN – Feingold”, “MC-CAIN Kennedy”, “MC-CAIN Lieberman”? Or, if getting tortured and imprisoned counts, my granddad could be President. Stalin, Mao, and Hitler had loads of accomplishments while Clinton and Harding had bimbos. Maybe Obama can make speeches in front of a mirror for 8 years – that beats more wars and more government. In fact, if I want to be optimistic, I hope we get lots of empty speeches and NO accomplishments!
Since the average US college graduate
probably couldn’t tell you where the
Brandenberg gate is, much less what it is, I’m not sure of its campaign value here anyway.
The only reason such an ridiculous idea would even be entertained is because Obama is black. Fortunately Germany is not burdened by conscience when it comes to Africans and are politely telling him to get bent.
In a way, this is the first election where both candidates seem to be running for the position of Caesar. So it’s no wonder that they act like the world revolves around them. That kind of attitude is necessary when you are being elected to run an empire [into the ground–IM].