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AmSpecBlog
ANOTHER Citizen of Earth
Obama isn't the first Democrat to not bother hiding the fact
that he sees his constituency as too big to fit between two shining
seas. Here's a bit from a
piece I wrote back in January 2004:
"Six days from now
New Hampshire will speak, and America and the world will listen,"
Kerry said, "because you are not just electing a president, but the
leader of the free world." Shortly after his inauguration "on
behalf of you and the other 96 percent of the people on this
planet, I will go to the UN and begin a proud new chapter in our
history."
Also, we know he's been
lifting Howie Dean's campaign finance rhetoric and, further,
here is Andrew Ferguson in a
must-read defense of self-interest on Obama's appropriation of
the phrase "a cause greater than one's own self-interest":
It was inevitable that Obama
would cop the phrase--repeating the idea as though it had come to
him as a revelation, in front of supporters and journalists who
apparently have been hypnotized into believing they've never heard
it before. Anyone with a long memory and the patience to listen
knows that Obama is truly shameless in this regard. Sometimes his
stump speeches sound like a Time-Life greatest-hits compilation of
Unforgettable Classic Political Baloney from the '70s, '80s, and
'90s, with one cant phrase after another lifted from speeches by
Ronald Reagan, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Elizabeth Dole, John Kerry,
Ross Perot, George Bush--yes, I said Elizabeth Dole--Jesse Jackson,
Howard Dean, Newt Gingrich, everybody. Like most of those phrases
("choose hope over fear," "we'll take this country back"), CGTYOSI
hasn't been fresh for years. It wasn't even fresh 43 years ago,
when Lyndon Johnson announced, in his inaugural address, that
Americans "want to be part of a common enterprise--a cause greater
than themselves." Look where that got
us.
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