When Obama says he’ll “restore America’s reputation” what it really means is that people who hate America will be delighted by his election. Why so many Americans don’t see it that way astounds me.
Via Mark Steyn.
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Leaving aside the question for now if they actually ‘hate’ America, rather than resent its position as sole superpower, those people overwhelmingly don’t think that Obama would be bad for the country (no more so than Obama’s American supporters do). If you look at it like that, the email Steyn quotes doesn’t really make all that much sense.
Certainly not this part:
Well, Obama is American, too, so liking him is not, per se, anti-American. And Steyn’s correspondent goes even further than that, for the implication of this quote is that to be pro-American you would have to hate Obama and presumably his supporters.
Is this the new new lithmus test? ‘You claim to like America? Fine, then prove it by picking the right kind of Americans a well-meaning foreigner needs to hate!’ I hope I’ll be excused if I don’t play along.
As to statements like this:
And what kind of Irishman would go and denounce his country and compatriots in an email to a foreign journalist that he has to assume will be at least partly published, as indeed happened here? At the very least not the happy and well balanced kind, so his statements should, IMHO, be taken with a shaker’s worth of salt.
“Well, Obama is American, too, so liking him is not, per se, anti-American.”
You miss the point. Obama transcends being American. He is beyond old dualities like American / Not-American. He is a World Historic Being. He speaks as the first and perhaps greatest World Citizen. He shared his vision at the Brandenburg Gate, sign of division, to his fellow world citizens, who have the audacity to hope for a world without divisions. They hear him speak, and they are made hungry for change. They they feel stirring within them a hope for a new kind of politics, a post-political politics. They dare to dream of new and vibrant unity that will make all preexisting forms of politics based on competition or even disagreement obsolete. All will be as one.
So, to like Obama, as a European fellow world citizen is to be “anti-America-that-is” in the shared hope of a new and better “America-as-it-could-be”. Hence, in a sense, it is to be anti-American.
Does that clarify it?
Ralf Goergens,
I think it goes back to something I wrote about during the 2004 election: the more negative an individual’s view of American the more likely they vote democrat (if citizens) or acclaim democrat citizens (if not). Obama’s policies are the kind of policies that people with a very negative view of America would like to see.
Why should we elect a leader that those who wish us ill approve of?
In the sense that it helps me to understand where you are coming from, and it does make me think that you are reading too much into what Obama’s appeal is all about, especially abroad.
You see, his audience in Berlin didn’t actually cheer what he was saying, nor were they even in the mood to accept or even try to understand the substance (such as it was) of his speech. They reacted to Obama as a JFK-like figure. They would have cheered if he had simply quoted a couple of pages worth of the Berlin phone book. He looks good enough, and his voice is sonorous enough for to make it work.
The lack of actual subtance helps a lot, for it turns Obama into the perfect projection screen: Europeans and other foreigners like him because they are told he is likable, his American supporters adore him, for promising change, again without any substance at all getting into the way, while a lot of conservatives loather him when they should shrug when faced with this empty suit.
I am not saying that you should elect him, but the people you are referring to would like to have Obma-like leaders for their own countries, so it at least isn’t as if they wish something for you they would reject for themselves.
“…it turns Obama into the perfect projection screen…”
Ralf, I am sure that is right. I think that is where the USA was a couple of months ago.
As Obama has had to take more positions, and as varous people have drilled down on his actual record, the blank surface of the screen has taken on some contours. There is a “there” there. He is a smooth-talking politician with a very left-wing background and voting record, who is up to his eyeballs in Chicago area machine politcs. All in all, the projection screen is only good if you want to indulge in the “delusion of hope”.
So, I have to say you are behind the learning curve when you say “conservatives loathe him when they should shrug when faced with this empty suit.” There is a substance filling the suit, and it is not air, and it is not something we want in the White House.
Yes, I knowe about Ayers, and the rest, but around here this counts as what you’d call a ‘colorful past’ (you know what former terrorists are called in most countries? – elder statesmen). I don’t think that you would dislike him quite as much if there hadn’t been his function as a projection screen earlier in the campaign.
Anyhow, I do think that he would make a terrible president and I am certainly not saying that you should vote for him, just don’t expect people who don’t know much if anything about him (and those are the people Steyn’s correspondents is referring to) to look past the substance, be it approvingly or disapprovingly.
Leaving aside the question for now if they actually ‘hate’ America, rather than resent its position as sole superpower,
Piffle. These are the same knuckleheads that “hated” America back when there were two superpowers – and loved, if not were ambivalent over the other.
And, I think, perhaps incorrectly, that you being disingenuous by proposing excuses for their behavior.
Part of Obama’s appeal is his messianic message and delivery, learned in his church from Rev. Wright. He stresses the call of redemption; his Presidency will call on all of us to work harder, give more, and be better. This is scary, from my experience.
See more on this at Easy Opinions – Leading the People
For fun, I have compared all politicians, especially Obama, to a guy making promises on a first date.
At Easy Opinions – Seduction and Politics
Some indeed do, and did, but to accuse all of them of being haters is far too broad a brush.