(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.
