Did Obama deprecate America?

This is an open letter to Scott Johnson of Powerline.

Dear Mr. Johnson:

Concerning Obama’s Berlin speech, you write:

I wonder if Americans will appreciate Obama’s deprecation of the United States on foreign soil for his own self-aggrandizing purposes. Surely one does not need to be a conservative Republican to recoil from this display.

Please explain how Obama deprecated the U.S. in this speech. He gave the standard one-world, one-humanity, tear-down-all-walls, eliminate-all-discrimination, liberal globalism message that one hears from every politician today including Bush and McCain, along with a brief passing mention of America’s sometime failures in the past to live up to its ideals. How is this worse than any speech given abroad by Bush and Rice? Bush and Rice have routinely denigrated America abroad. Rice has repeatedly told foreign and domestic audiences that Americans should not be impatient with the hideous chaos in Iraq, since America didn’t give women the vote until the 20th century. She thus equated self-governing democratic 19th century America with a Muslim sharia terrorist society! Did you ever once say that Rice had dragged down the U.S. on foreign soil in order to make the Iraq situation—and thus herself—look better?

Or how about when Bush went to Africa and said:

My nation’s journey toward justice has not been easy and it is not over. The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times. But however long the journey, our destination is set: liberty and justice for all. [Italics added.]

Thus, speaking in a black country, Bush said that white Americans today harbor the same “racial bigotry” against blacks as existed in slavery times. Did you ever say that Bush had contemptibly deprecated America on foreign soil for his own moral self-aggrandizement?

Show me anything Obama said in his Berlin speech that is a fraction as insulting to America as what Bush and Rice have said over and over during the last eight years.

I look forward to seeing you back up your statement that Obama’s speech is one from which Americans who support Bush and McCain should “recoil.”

Lawrence Auster

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Paul Gottfried writes:

You are to be applauded for exposing this GOP hypocrite. I am sick to my stomach of the GOP faithful beating up on Obama for sounding like PC Republican politicians.

WWM writes:

I agree with Mr. Auster here. Even Fox News noted that Obama’s speech sounded an awful lot like Bush’s. It is fascinating to observe that while this campaign is being touted in the media as a “change” election, in terms of foreign policy, though it is mostly much about the same thing. Like Bush, Obama wants us to be a citizen of the world. As least Cindy Sheehan is a consistent anti-war pacifist.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 24, 2008 09:33 PM | Send