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The Spectacle Blog
On Wednesday, President Obama delivered the commencement address at the Air Force Academy. As with most Obama speeches, it was full of self-congratulation.
As George Will put it, “If you struck from Barack Obama’s vocabulary the first-person singular pronoun, he would fall silent, which would be a mercy to us and a service to him, actually.”
In his speech at the Academy, Obama used the word “I” 36 times. (“Me” was only used a further two times, while some fraction of the 69 instances of “we” were simply aggrandized versions of “I”.)
After explaining to the airmen and women that they would face fewer deployments than other recent graduates because of the winding down of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama embarked on a litany of self-defense, cloaked in terms of leadership, almost pathetic for the Commander-in-Chief speaking at a military academy.
Obama said that the US is “leading on global security,” almost amusingly mentioning “reducing our nuclear arsenal with Russia.” You would think he would not want to remind us of the sweet nothings he whispered to former Russian President Medvedev about increased “flexibility” after the 2012 elections.
He said we are leading economically, at a time when his outrageous budget deficits have even Europeans ignoring the US when it comes to being a role model for how to keep a nation from bankruptcy.
He said we’re leading “on behalf of freedom” because of our actions in Libya, where he said we “led from the front,” again an odd reminder of the fact of his “leading from behind” as well as a reminder that thousands are being slaughtered in Syria as the US stands nearly silent.
He said that “there is a new feeling about America (and)…new confidence in our leadership.” Perhaps he has not noticed the results of Pew’s annual survey of opinion of America which, other than in Japan, has generally been sliding during Obama’s presidency.
Perhaps most disingenuous and clever, however, was Obama’s stated support for capitalism, a word which must be difficult for him to utter. He urged the listeners to “(put) aside the tired notion that says our influence has waned or that America is in decline” and then suggested that “we fought our way back (and) created the largest middle class in history and the most prosperous economy the world has ever known.”
The president transitioned this into calling for more “investing,” which is his code for government spending, and to “get on with nation-building here at home.”
Obama went on to a theme of an upcoming “American Century,” but in typical Obama fashion said that it will be “because we have the strongest alliances of any nation.” Even when he said that “no other nation can play the role that we play in global affairs,” that was based on “shaping the global institutions of the 20th century to meet the challenges of the 21st.”
In other words, according to Obama, the US will only be strong because it works through the United Nations, a premier anti-American institution if ever there was one, and because we skip through the fields of foreign affairs holding hands with other nations’ diplomats. That may be Obama’s definition of strength, but it is one which most prior American presidents and others in position of national leadership would not recognize. Indeed, some might consider Obama’s characterization a description of American weakness rather than strength. An interesting message to deliver at a military institution.
It was also amusing to hear the president say that he supports “the liberty of individuals,” getting in a jab at Walmart by saying “we stand with…the entrepreneur who wants to start a business without paying a bribe.” Of course, there were many labor unions whose implicit bribe of campaign contributions earned them waivers from the tyrannical mandates of Obamacare. Cash may not have changed hands, but this administration is no better than the money-grubbers Obama criticized in his speech.
Obama added that he believes in a “simple yet revolutionary idea — there at our founding and in our hearts ever since — that we have it in our power to make the world anew, to make the future what we will.” I doubt this was the conception of Madison and Jefferson. Their goal was not to “make the world anew” but to create a nation in which the powers of the federal government were limited so that people are free to pursue happiness. If our Founders knew that a big government radical like Barack Obama was using them as his stated inspiration and justification for his policies and practices, they would shout out in disapproval.
The Commander-in-Chief is an appropriate speaker at a military academy’s graduation. But this president’s words serve to remind that he is a narcissistic, self-congratulatory, internationalist well outside what many, especially in our military, believe our nation’s leader should be.
View all comments (22) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Ross Kaminsky
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/05/24/obama-at-the-academy
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Mike 3/505| 5.24.12 @ 9:38AM
President Obama has no clue about true leadership. In the Miltary, complaints go up, never down. Credit always goes to your subordinates/teammates and responsibility for any failure are always accepted personally. President Obama is the antithesis of this.
Mike
GATOR-6
Dr. X| 5.24.12 @ 10:04AM
I attended Obama's speech at West Point in 2010. It was disgusting. A ninth-grader could have given a better speech. Obama was about a half-hour late, so everybody waited. (There was a rumor that his security wanted to strip cadets of their ceremonial dress-uniform sabers so that they couldn't be used as weapons against Obama but that plan was nixed at the last moment and the cadets were allowed to wear them). Obama prattled on about crap like "green jobs and clean energy" and the speech was filled with idiotic pap like "we do not fight for the sake of fighting."
Believe it or not, having the CIC for a commencement speaker ruined one of the most important days of my life. By contrast, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's speech at West Point in 2009 was beyond a doubt the most thoughtful and memorable commencement speeches I've ever heard.
The fact that Obama is the commander-in-chief literally makes me sick.
Occam's Tool| 5.24.12 @ 11:31PM
Dear X: Thank you for your service. POTUS is an idiot.
irish19| 5.25.12 @ 1:13AM
Second both sentiments.
Dr. X| 5.25.12 @ 12:48PM
It was not I, but my kid who graduated West Point in 2010. I did not mean to imply that I was a graduate; I was an attendee.
I appreciate the sentiment, though.
ACD| 5.24.12 @ 10:44AM
Maobama's entire existence isn't worth the sweat on a AFA plebe's brow.
He's a disgrace to them and to our country, which I'm sure most of the AFA graduates know very well. To him, they are props in his ludicrous re-election campaign, nothing more, and maybe even less. Is there any doubt he'd celebrate their deaths if it advance the cause of Islamofascism around the world, and/or created some sort of "crisis" that he could exploit?
Where, ever, in his words, writings or deeds has this filthy puke supported U.S. troops? In fact, he bleeds them slowly by continuing his predecessor's "no victory" policy in every foreign engagement--though to GWB's very limited credit, at least he knew that killing enemies was useful, he just didn't kill enough of them to be decisively victorious. The very concept of victory, which AFA graduates are taught to achieve, is utterly alien to Dear Leader--unless, of course, it's some other nation's victory over the U.S. Then it's just fine.
The long line of military academy graduates will, I hope and pray, one day file past this bastard's forgotten grave and spit on it. Maybe it will help the worms digest the garbage they're consuming.
Ed Kimble| 5.24.12 @ 11:39AM
Kaminsky faults the President for not reading the Pew Global Attitudes polling regarding U.S. stature abroad, and provides us a link so we can see that it is, in fact, Kaminsky who can't read. U.S. favorability ratings, particularly among developed nations, has doubled since the bad old days of the Bush debacle in 2007! What are you looking at Kaminsky?
shortcake| 5.24.12 @ 11:58AM
I can't believe how u people talk about the commander in chief. Most republicans don't even serve in the military and u denigrate this man. By the way, bush was so vulgar and cocky, he would say "as your commander in chief, I" so many times when talking to serviceman, I wonder how they felt when they knew his father got him into the reserves instead of going to vietnam when john kerry volunteered twice together with al gore and most democrats only to see their service demeaned by the so-called patriotic party. now u soldiers say this. yeah, guess who is salivating to send u back to war. Oh, and let's not forget the flight costume bush wore on the flight deck to zero the focus in on himself instead of the brave sailors who held up their ship for his publicity stunt.
BTW, I saw that speech, he gave them so much praise, he was almost in tears so your article only shows your fox news talking points which obviously did not go through colin powell.
Mike 3/505| 5.24.12 @ 12:41PM
"Oh, and let's not forget the flight costume bush wore on the flight deck to zero the focus in on himself instead of the brave sailors who held up their ship for his publicity stunt."
Bush is a real, no- fighter pilot. Go do your homework. The only one parading around in a costume, is the current POTUS.
Mike 3/505| 5.24.12 @ 12:42PM
**no-kiddin
ACD| 5.24.12 @ 12:48PM
Hey, illiterate shortcake, are you really trying to whine from your leftist pedestal that criticism of The One is out of bounds, just because he's CiC? While in the same rambling paragraph, criticizing the former CiC? Bush, for all of his many faults, was in fact a military pilot. Pol Potobama has never served anything but himself (and, I assume, his totalitarian harpy wife, at least twice). Kerry's self-service in the military would have been honorable, had he not lied constantly about it and his fellow soldiers, from the moment he got back to CONUS. Gore? What?
And the ability to summon tears at the proper photogenic moment isn't a virtue, you idiot. It might not be so transparently fraudulent if this jackal had ever done anything to support this country's armed forces, not bleed them slowly with his "no victory" policy. Which of course, you don't address, because it's beyond your mental capacity.
Bush engaged in publicity stunts here and there, as all presidents do. Pol Potobama's entire presidency is a publicity stunt, and one with a lot of collateral damage to the nation (which is what he intends--ever read what he and his terrorist buddies have said and written?)
Sorry, there's no appetite for useless wars amongst conservatives. There is an appetite for waging war with overwhelming force and with a clear strategy to achieve victory and impose a peace that benefits the U.S.A. The last president who really understood that was Eisenhower, and maybe, to a lesser extent, Reagan.
When Pol Potobama proves in word and deed that he is not a treasonous bastard, and is fit to lick the slippers of either man, I'll consider changing my tune.
Oldefarte| 5.24.12 @ 8:05PM
Wait, 'Shortcake' did not write this......MOOCH DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Derek Leaberry| 5.24.12 @ 12:37PM
As a black supporter hawking T-shirts bellowed just after the Navy Seals executed Osama bind-Laden, "We got Osama. And Obama got 'em. We got Osama and Obama got 'em." Barrack Hussein Obama has the whole world in his hands. Or should I be required to capitalize HIS?
Purple Lips| 5.24.12 @ 1:29PM
Oh, by all means capitalize the letters. He is, after all, our nation's first Gay Kenyan President.
Tom Kyba| 5.24.12 @ 3:05PM
Gosh, if I hadn't read this comments section I would not have realized that President Narcissus is actually a mensch, and not a greasy little pathological liar. I had assumed that liberals were a collection of spoiled children, not for disliking Bush et al(he's a Republican so of course you're not going to have his back) but because of the obsequious brown-nosing applied to Dear Leader no matter what he says or does. The dichotomy we are dealing with here is not just left-right but, as importantly, child versus adult. We on the right had to deal with uber-liar Clinton not so long ago so sorry lefties, but conservatives, with all of our faults, are not going to be fooled by little acts like crocodile tears for the military when Narcissus thinks it suits him. I'm not generally one for religious imagery when critiquing pols but the current POTUS is the great deceiver. All pols lie to some extent or another, but the level of deciept from this man is unparalleled. Were Bush, Bush, Reagan or whomever so unremittingly disrespectful to the people he is privileged to serve, the commenters on this site and others would be calling him to task constantly. When however, Obama lies, you libs seem to suck it up and beg for more. What's it like kids, to have so little self-respect?
Pete| 5.24.12 @ 5:08PM
Insist upon the lie. Dem strategy 101.
Oldefarte| 5.24.12 @ 8:09PM
Beyond the truthful description that '..... he is a narcissistic, self-congratulatory, internationalist well outside what many, especially in our military, believe our nation's leader should be.....', there is one other defining word which many of us hope that he will be in January, and that is....................G-O-N-E!!!!!!!!!
Cissy| 5.24.12 @ 8:52PM
I was there at graduation yesterday with twenty nine thousand other folks at the US Air Force Academy. My son is one of the 1073 cadets who graduated. He was extremely proud to have the President of the United States there. You see, it wasn't about the man who holds the office, it was about honoring and respecting the office. Obama did his part, he spoke well of them and their service and he shook the hand of each and every cadet. My son is part of a long military tradition, his Dad was a pilot in the Air Force, his grandfather attended West Point and won the Silver Star in Vietnam. His family members have fought in wars from the Texas revolution to World War I and II. His sister will graduate in 2014 from the Academy as well. I doubt if any of them would have voted for Obama. I didn't vote for Obama in 2008 and won't this year either, he's been a disaster for our country.....but yesterday he did a good job.....
Oregun| 5.24.12 @ 11:41PM
I am not sure that you should respect the position if the person in the position has no respect for it himself. As a Vietnam era vet I watched first hand what a politician running a war can do and how the servicemen buy the votes for the politicians with their lifes. I guess having a politician show up as CIC and go through his campaign speech is better than nothing. If showing up is doing a good job then well done!
Zbigniew Mazurak | 5.25.12 @ 3:41AM
Good article, Mr Kaminsky, although you've omitted the facts that:
1) Regarding Obama's claim that "reducing our nuclear arsenal with Russia", that is a blatant lie, because only the US is reducing its nuclear arsenal, while Russia is GROWING its. Indeed, Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov wasn't bluffing when he said that Russia would not have to decommission a single warhead or delivery system under New START and would build up its arsenal to the maximum level allowed by the treaty. And it's doing so today. Reducing AMERICA'S nuclear arsenal is NOT an achievement - it is a huge mistake that only makes America weaker and less secure.
2) Since Obama took office, the US has become much weaker, much less secure, and much less respected around the world - by friend and foe alike - than before. He has managed to alienate many allies (or cause them to doubt whether they can count on America) while appeasing America's enemies. He has repeatedly knifed Britain in the back on the issue of Falklands and gave Moscow the serial numbers of Britain's Trident SLBMs, over London's strident objections. He cancelled Pres. Bush's plan to deploy missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, throwing these allies under the bus. He has repeatedly mistreated Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and has demanded that Israel withdraw to indefensible borders. At the same time, he has been appeasing America's enemies. Iran's and North Korea's nuclear weapon and BM programs have proceeded completely undisturbed during his term. He has appeased China and only belatedly allowed a human rights activist to immigrate to America (and only as a result of GOP pressure). He has shamelessly appeased a KGB-run, aggressive, imperialist Russia, signed a disastrous arms reduction treaty that obliges ONLY the US to cut its nuclear arsenal while allowing Russia to grow its, and has promised Russia "more flexibility" on missile defense if he's reelected. "The US will retain military superiority"? Not if Obama is elected. We already have his record to judge him on, and it's disastrous. He targeted defense for deep cuts on his first day as President. He has already cut $920 bn out of defense and has forced the closure of over 50 weapon programs, forced significant force structure reductions, cut the US arsenal deeply, completely forfeited the modernization of the few nuclear weapons the US retains, imposed a $487 bn budget cut diktat on the DOD, and embraced the use of the sequester (another $600 bn defense budget cut) as a political tool with which to try to extract concessions on tax hikes from Republicans. As a result of Obama's disastrous policies, the US has become much weaker, much less secure, and much less respected around the world - by friend and foe alike - than before.
USA Patriot| 5.25.12 @ 8:11PM
Your comment is fabulous, and you hit exactly what Obama is, and how he's devastating America. I hope you don't mind that I copy and paste it to an email, and send it to a few people who have gathered fluff for brains since he was elected. Not to mention they're brainwashing their children.
Controse| 5.25.12 @ 11:23AM
Let's all watch and listen closely. Those of us who remember Lyndon Johnson's struggle to pronounce the word "negro" will probably pick up on the halting way Obama, or whoever he is, attempts to pronounce "capitalism." It is hard to pronounce words you would rather not say.