From Joan Swirsky: In decades of commenting on the political scene, [including those of dictators and despots], I cannot recall a single leader of any country or regime who has ever spoken negatively of his country or tolerated others speaking ill of the land or the people he represented
Until now. Bizarre and, yes, repugnant as it is to our essentially centrist country, America now has a president who has broken that time-honored tradition. Barack Obama, on the campaign trail and as the leader of the free world is the first U.S. president to proclaim to anyone within earshot that he, like his wife, is not proud of his country, and is all-too-willing to offer serial apologies – for America! – to Americans and foreigners alike. As Ed Lasky writes: “We know that during the campaign [Obama] warned that criticismof his wife was `off-limits’. But criticism of America – well, that is fine.
We also know that during his run for the presidency, Obama expressed sneering condescension towards all those bible-clasping, gun-owning yahoos who “cling” to those silly things, and that in Europe he consistently gave voice to America’s supposed “sins.” But all that pales in comparison to the clear contempt – looks more like hatred to me – that Obama feels for the United States of America and for it's Constitution.
In true utopian-kindergarten fashion – Obama pledged “with conviction” that America will “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” In other words, destroy big bad America’s ability to defend itself!
- In London, Obama made clear that the world’s financial wealth was no longer made by those inferior leaders Roosevelt and Churchill, effectively ceding America’s leading role in creating and sharing wealth to nations that have never measured up to our country’s bountiful generosity or spirit of free-market entrepreneurship.
- In Venezuela, Obama sat passively while the Marxist Chavez handed him an American-bashing book and delivered another revile-America speech, while never once rising to defend our country.
- In Nicaragua, Obama again sat passively while the Marxist Ortega blamed the United States for a century of what he called terroristic U.S. aggression in Central America, again emitting not a whisper of defense on our country’s behalf.
- In Turkey, Obama said – incredibly and inaccurately – that America was not a Christian nation.
- And in his recent trip to Mexico, Obama said that the escalating border violence was essentially America’s fault.
Scan you memory. Can you think of any other leader in world history who so consistently badmouths his own country, or fails to defend it? I can’t.
Historian Victor Davis Hanson also noticed something odd about Obama’s apology tour. “Despite this fresh climate of atonement, there was a complete absence of a single apology from any other foreign leader…not a word came from Britain about colonialism…nothing from Germany on the Holocaust…not a peep from France about Algeria or Vietnam. Turkey was mum on the Armenian killings…Russia said nothing about the 30 million murdered by Stalin…Nothing came from China about the 70 million who perished under Mao…Mr. Medvedev said nothing about Putin’s brutish rule…We saw no concrete evidence of any help — or hope and change — from any foreign leader. Zilch.”
In addition, Hanson continues, “We hear nothing about our Gettysburg, or our entry into World War I. Iwo Jima and the Bulge are never alluded to. Drawing the line in Korea and forcing the end of the Soviet monstrosity are taboo subjects. That we pledged the life of New York for Berlin in the Cold War is unknown. Liberating Afghanistan and Iraq from the diabolical Taliban and Saddam Hussein is left unsaid. The Civil Rights movement, the Great Society, affirmative action, and present billion-dollar foreign-aid programs apparently never existed. Millions of Africans have been saved by George Bush’s efforts at extending life-saving medicines to AIDS patients — but again, this is never referenced.”
Blogger James Lewis says that Obama’s “obsessive need to put down his own country shows a stunningly ignorant man who has evidently never spoken to a concentration camp survivor, a Cuban refugee, a boat person from Vietnam, a Soviet dissident, or a survivor of Mao’s purges.”
And speaking about appeasing Iran, the Obama administration recently asked a federal judge to throw out a $6.6-billion class-action lawsuit against Iran filed by 52 American diplomats and military officials held hostage for more than a year at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago. Nothing like selling out Americans to make brownie points with a bloodthirsty dictator!How Is This Playing in the Arab world of our Enemies?
On Friday, prayer leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami referred to Hillary Rodham Clinton as the "immature and newcomer" secretary of state.
Ahmadinejad has boasted of telling a prime minister at the Durban II conference in Geneva that America and the Zionists -- how the Iranian regime refers to Israel -- "are on the verge of death."