WASHINGTON -- Another Democratic president has shattered
precedent. Democratic politicians take great pride in shattering
American precedents, and they do so with such regularity that it
is surprising there are any precedents left to shatter, except, I
guess, for the precedents Democrats establish on the ruins of
earlier precedents. I hope, when the next Republican president
comes along, that he or she will shatter a few Democratic
precedents. Given the serial bungling of the Obama
Administration, I shall not be surprised to see that
precedent-shattering Republican come along in 2013.
During his recent European peregrination, our haughty president
became the first American president to speak ill of America while
on foreign soil. Actually it is rare for an American president to
speak ill of America anywhere. President Barack H. Obama does it
practically everywhere. Now that Fidel Castro has quieted down
and the French left is in abeyance, President Obama has become
America's leading critic.
Until the ex-presidency of Jimmy Carter it was unheard of for a
former president to speak ill of his country or of the sitting
president while traveling abroad. Jimmy broke that precedent
early in the presidency of the man who beat him, Ronald Reagan.
Since then Jimmy has frequently piped up against America and
whoever might be president. He did it as recently as 2005 when he
said, "I think what's going on at Guantanamo Bay and in Abu
Ghraib and other places is a disgrace to the United States of
America."
Now along comes the precedent-shattering President Obama
traveling through Europe on his virginal passport, a passport
that was used precisely once before he became a national
political figure. His tour of Europe was the burlesque of a
preening popinjay. He gave the Queen an iPod. His wife gave her a
friendly squeeze. Oh yes, and the President declared that the
official language of German-speaking Austria is "Austrian." All
that was amusing, but the criticism of his homeland while in
Europe was not. Actually I am tired of hearing his criticism of
his homeland when he is at home. We know he believes America was
a failed state before he became president. Now let him return the
country to the bipartisanship that he promised.
While in Europe, our sententious president blamed America for
genocide and torture. He brought up Hiroshima and Guantanamo. He
accused us of arrogance. What can President Obama possibly have
against arrogance? Since his emergence on the national stage a
year or so ago, he has given me the impression that he considers
arrogance among the virtues.
It was in Strasbourg, among what he might call the
Strasbourgundians, that he was most critical of his country. Said
our president: "Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and
seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have
been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive,
even derisive." Yes, he said "derisive," and he continued: "On
both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too
common." Then he concluded: "They are not wise. They do not
represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the
Atlantic and leave us both more isolated." After reading that
preachy drivel I have to say not even Jimmy Carter is capable of
such empty moralizing. Perhaps this is how one talks as a
community organizer, or a motivational speaker, both of which
Obama seems to have been; but now he is the president of the
United States!
There was a time a couple of decades ago when this sort of
carping about America was cited as the product of "liberal
guilt." Doubtless had President Obama been sounding like this in
1984, say, at the Democratic National Convention, critics such as
Jeane Kirkpatrick would be chiding him for "liberal guilt." Mind
you, at the time I took issue with this diagnosis of our liberal
friends. Then and now, they do not believe they have been guilty
of any moral or intellectual failing. If you listen to the
precedent-shattering President Obama you will note that he is
accusing other Americans of failures and vice, not
himself. This is not liberal guilt; it is liberal arrogance. It
was liberal arrogance in the past, and so it is today. It is
going to wear thin with my fellow Americans very shortly.
Consider this one last slap at two great men after one of
America's greatest triumphs for peace and justice. While gloating
over America's financial decline, our President noted to his
European audience that a new financial order is being created by
the world's top 20 financial powers, not by "just Roosevelt and
Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy….But that's not the
world we live in, and it shouldn't be the world that we live in."
Whoever told our president that the post-World War II world came
from these two great men "sitting in a room with a brandy"
misinformed him. His knowledge of history is as defective as is
his knowledge of Roosevelt's and Churchill's tastes.
