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The Spectacle Blog
(Catching up from being out of town....) To give credit where it is due, I thought that the overall tenor of President Obama's speech at the Fort Hood Memorial on Tuesday was quite good. Nice words, well expressed, appropriate, and at times quite eloquent.
That said, it REALLY REALLY REALLY grates to hear, again, especially on such an occasion, the following rhetorical trope:
"In an age of selfishness, they embody responsibility. In an era of division, they call upon us to come together. In a time of cynicism, they remind us of who we are as Americans."
What era does Obama live in? The America I know, that we all know, in 2009, is not an America that is suffering from an age of selfishness, an era of division, a time of cynicism. Mr. Obama can speak for himself. This is not a land nor an epoch of selfishness and cynicism, and the divisiveness is not extraordinary or even terribly bad -- and it often comes from Obama himself. But somebody should look the president in the eye and say "WHo are you calling selfish and cynical, Kemosabe?" I look around me and see idealism, love of country, generosity. I see the incredible outpouring of church groups and other citizens in aiding the victims of Katrina. I see people volunteering hither and yon for all sorts of good causes. And yes, I even see TEA partiers who are out there of their own free will, at their own expense, trying to defend the freedoms they love for the sake of their children, for the sake of posterity.
It is way past time for this president to stop telling us that the general state of affairs is cynical, selfish, angry, and benighted (and, tacitly, that he and his circle are the only light that offers hope amidst the darkness he describes). Enough is enough. Mark Hyman today on our main site writes that this president despises America (except for the America he would remake in his own image). Perhaps so. He certainly apologizes for our flaws far more often than he actually specifies our strengths and the things that make us admirable. Either way, though, Mr. Obama's act as moral judge of the supposed cynicism and selfishness of others, indeed of society in general, is an act that is well beyond tired. It is a tired act, an unpleasant act, an unnecessary act. And it just isn't true.
Physician, heal thyself.
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More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2009/11/11/what-era-does-obama-live-in
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Pingback| 11.11.09 @ 10:40PM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : What Era Does Obama Liv links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Jim Hlavac| 11.11.09 @ 10:44PM
I have one word for Obama: malaise
Then he can join Carter in the dustbin of history.
SoCon| 11.12.09 @ 12:10AM
I agree with you, Quin; I know many, many good and decent folks in this country. I don't understand Obama's cynicism, but then again, I don't understand most Liberals, so that makes sense.
Pingback| 11.12.09 @ 3:04AM
The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : What Era Does Obama Live In? : PlanetTalk.net links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
TParty4USA| 11.12.09 @ 3:56AM
Obama thinks all Americans are selfish, cynical, and divisive 'cuz that's the way he is and it's the kind of folks that he pals around with.
Projection and transference.
And. on his more "insightful" days. he views all Americans (outside a cocoon of acquaintences) as clinging to their bibles and guns in a state of xenophobia ginned up and capitalized upon by the evil Rove-Cheney crowd.
Waging war on Americans is easier for Obama to do than dealing with reality. Reality arrives 2010.
BSG| 11.12.09 @ 7:15AM
Obama is not eloquent. Ronald Reagan was eloquent. No other president since Reagan has qualified as eloquent. I think "eloquent" is the new PC term for "articulate." Obama does not share the American experience, so he does not - cannot - connect with us. His speeches are just words with no meaning and do not resonate with Americans. So, can we please quit calling him eloquent?
TennesseeVolunteer| 11.12.09 @ 7:31AM
As a child in Catholic schools, each week we would pass around a small cardboard box and the pennies, nickels and dimes we would put in it each week "were for the missions".
Every week, the nuns would tell us how that money would help others. I can promise you that Obama had a much more priveleged upbringing with his Grandparents than I did in Mt. Healthy, Ohio. But when you listen to the guy, you just know in your gut..that he never put money in the box, he has always taken the money out.
His idea of starting a company and creating jobs is to: get a government grant, hire a bunch of people to organize communities (tell others how to get a job when you've never actually had a real job that requires you to shovel, carry, or clean) and then to apply for more government grants so they can organize some more.
He doesn't get it, he'll never get it and you want to know why? Because he never put his own money in that little cardboard box every week for years when your family barely had enough to make ends meet.
phoenix| 11.12.09 @ 8:06AM
Spot on BSG ,,Obama does not share "The American Experience"....his formative years were spent in Indonesia ...attending a Muslim school...and being brought up by a Muslim Step father...he never as a youth said :]"ThePledge of Alligence"...in schools...his time in Hawaii was sitting at the feet of a known communist Poet....
20 years in a church with a preacher that "damned America"......being he doesn't or hasn't shared the american experience we have a man that is unto himself...
phoenix
bap| 11.12.09 @ 8:30AM
Seems to me that he's not living in a different era so much as a different reality.
Regardless, though, he fails Leadership 101. Even if selfishness, cynicism and divisiveness (and people who cling to guns and religion) really are what he sees when looks out into America, if he knew anything about this country, he'd know that Americans always respond better to inspiration. Chiding a nation founded on the principle that all men are created equal is guaranteed to do nothing but anger folks.
Richard Baker| 11.12.09 @ 9:12AM
The Kenyan is not a raised American. His home-raisings are not from within this country but are from without. He doesn't understand America and finds this country baffling. Add in that his mentors were mostly Communists/Marxists/Moslems, he has no idea why we see ourselves as we do from either a historical or cultural basis. This befuddlement says to me that this is one weak inner man with a cool facade.
Richard Baker| 11.12.09 @ 9:13AM
an historical. Not a historical.
Bob Miller| 11.12.09 @ 9:31AM
Obama is clearly a cynic himself.
les grossman| 11.12.09 @ 9:35AM
Obama is in full "malaise" mode. Next up, he invites all Dem and socialist beards to a skull session at Camp David and poses this important question: Anybody have any ideas?
Pingback| 11.12.09 @ 10:22AM
Never Yet Melted » Who’s Being Divisive? links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Oldefarte| 11.12.09 @ 11:31AM
Mark Hyman's words pretty much nailed Obama's personae to the barn door. According to THE NARCISSISTIC ONE, America is selfish because of its not SHARING ITS WEALTH. Representative John Lewis recently said that universal healthcare is a RIGHT, and he [along with Obama, Jackson, Sharpton,etc] believes that indigent Americans who constantly [from cradle to grave] are entitled to the wealth/benefits of others just from the fact of being born and breathing, without any effort on their part to provide for themselves. Since Americans have not SHARED THEIR WEALTH adequately [in Obama's etc opinion], they are now guilty of being SELFISH. In my humble opinion, the opposite should be effected----that everyone has the right to produce as many children as are wanted and desired, but that therafter it should/is their RESPONSIBILITY to provide for same [not the government and its taxpayers]!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
tj| 11.12.09 @ 2:12PM
OMG! is 2010 here yet..... I am getting so tired of this BS.... can we just rise up now and slam this administration back to -hell!
JimJam| 11.12.09 @ 2:49PM
Obama is a straw man. His views don't matter. What is disturbing though, is all the sheep in Congress that know better but refuse to take a stand. Not lost causes like Pelosi and Reid, but the one and two term newbies that can still relate to the people who put them in office. The Administration (Emanual, Axlerod et al) must have scared the sh1t out of them to get them to cower so much. Too bad, cause they will be out of work soon anyway and then it will be too late for any of them to make a difference.
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.12.09 @ 3:38PM
What frightens me are the un-elected bureaucracies that can control every aspect of our lives.
(gulp)
MarkJ| 11.12.09 @ 5:20PM
In ObamaWorld, every day is Groundhog Day 1937, every movie at the cineplex is "The Grapes of Wrath," the Spanish Republicans are still fighting Franco, unionists are still struggling for the minimum wage, Josef Stalin is merely "Uncle Joe," the Scottsboro Boys are still rotting in jail, and Woody Guthrie is warbling "The Union Maid" on every wireless set in this land that's made for you and me.
Obama probably thinks the greatest tragedy in his life is that he was born 50 years too late.
Alice Moore| 11.12.09 @ 8:19PM
I've come to the conclusion that Obama's America is where Spock has a beard and Captain Kirk has a gold lame shirt.
PCP Smoker| 11.12.09 @ 5:31PM
what REALLY REALLY REALLY grates me is to read some fake conservative like Quin: (1) giving Obama credit for style when it's substance that matters, (2) the tired and old copy and paste sentence admonishing conservatives to lay off some Rino. Screw off
jma| 11.12.09 @ 6:17PM
Bingo!
Gerald Stephens| 11.13.09 @ 8:20AM
I LOVE AMERICA!
When angered, we act, and when we act we win!
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS DIED with Fort Hood.
Stay angry until the 'warped scourge' is contained and eliminated.
Gerald Stephens
Hartford, CT
Roscoe| 11.13.09 @ 8:51AM
BSG is absolutely correct. The empty suit is inarticulate to the extreme. He reads words which have been compiled by others into canned phrases. The phrases are meaningless; they have no remote chance of application; they are so out of touch with the reality of people's daily experience that it is simply baffling to correct-minded people how this guy can have risen to the office where he now sits, while being so clueless. How can this inveterate liar have possibly fooled so many? But then, all one needs to do is look at video of the thousands who jam-packed the park in Chicago on election night, and one sees. Those airheads were just ready AT THAT MOMENT to buy any bill of goods they were offered that promised the equivalent of their mother's teat. And throughout the campaign of '08 he was there, selling exactly that, with no competing idea; at least not one that was put into any terms they could understand. So that is the era he lives in. The era where a country one third full of airheads is wanting soothing, nice sounds coming from a grown-up who will say all their worries aren't too bad. So his speechwriters write those phrases and he delivers them and the airheads suckle & coo. But while cosy and warm inside by the fire, in the rocker it may be, a wolf is approaching the door. The wolf is called national malaise, civic disenchantment, chronic unemployment. J.Carter knows the sound of its footsteps. It approaches, and so does 2012.