Published in The New York Post on July 2, 2008.
Barack Obama yesterday kicked off a week of patriotic speeches. It’s much more than the normal politician’s July 4 oration - it’s Obama’s answer to a crucial test.
After all, millions of Americans have seen the tapes of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - Obama’s longtime pastor - damning America, painting our nation as the world’s villain. So voters have a right to wonder how pro-American Obama really is.
A question on such an existential level is unusual in politics - but so is Rev. Wright.
Obama’s first “patriotism” speech yesterday struck just the right notes in articulating his love of America. If he keeps it up, it will go far toward easing voters’ concerns.
The candidate included the usual anti-war rhetoric and noted our failings (”ongoing racial strife,” “perversions of our political system,” “the wrenching poverty of the Mississippi Delta”) - but also paid due homage to the nation that is giving him the opportunity to become its leader.
More, he let us know he understands that America is the leading force for good in the world - referring to his “gut instinct that so many of us have, that America is the greatest country on Earth.”
He praised “the joys of American life and culture - its vitality, its variety, its freedom” and noted that they had “always outweighed its imperfections.” He said that what “makes America great has never been its perfection, but the belief that it can be made better.”
The president is the high priest of our secular religion. From that pulpit, Ronald Reagan affirmed his belief that God placed us as a unique nation between two oceans to offer a beacon of liberty and hope to the world. Abraham Lincoln called the United States the “last best hope of Earth.”
Does Obama embrace this secular faith ardently enough to be its priest? The question lingered after Wright’s expostulations.
Obama made it worse by dealing defensively with patriotism - attacking those who questioned his and wondering aloud if wearing a flag in his lapel was a form of pandering. These musings left us in doubt that he really disagrees with Wright, and really embraces the idea that America is exceptional.
But his “patriotism offensive” shows that he’s learning how to assuage those fears.
Coming out of the primaries, Obama had separate female and male problems. The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling on guns likely solves his woman problem - worries about preserving Roe v. Wade should now bring female voters flocking back.
But Hillary Clinton’s male voters will be a harder sell. In the extreme, their worries about Obama’s patriotism even leave some fearing that he could be a sleeper agent sent to the US to destabilize our system. He needs to soothe them at a very fundamental level.
If he keeps striking the same notes as yesterday, Obama can do that. He’ll still face attacks on his plans to raise taxes to intolerable heights or to wreck our health-care system by covering 15 million illegal immigrants - but that’s normal politics.
At least we’ll know that the next president of the United States, should it be Barack Obama, actually likes us.
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They all like us Dick, until they get elected.
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No one has ever accused Obama of not being able to give an eloquent speech and mesmerizing his listeners, but hopefully the American people will be able to see beyond this charade. You are who you hang around or as the adage goes: “birds of a feather flock together”. Some may want to discount the impact of Rev. Wright and his being embraced by Obama as a surrogate father, mentor as well as pastor until the pressure politically became so strong it forced his hand to resign from his Church and distance himself from Rev. Wright at least for the time being. His initial reluctance and even putting his own grandmother in an unfavorable light to maintain his relationship with Rev. Wright should be very telling to anyone paying attention.
This is so much more than issues; so much more than Republican or Democrat; so much more than liberal or conservative; so much more than black or white. If we as a country strive to remind ourselves of the immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King when he said, “Do not judge a person by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.”
If Obama was not a person of color and these identical situations occured regarding his associations, his candidacy would have been over long ago. There is no way it would have been tolerated or should have been tolerated. Apparently the standards are different in this election and passes are continually given to a “teflon” candidate.
So Obama can talk the talk, but can he walk the talk? His past seems to contradict what his advisors are feeding him to say to win the confidence of the American electorate. Hopefully enough voters will see beyond the veil of deception.
Obama is a Wolf in Sheep’s clothing. There is nothing, in my opinion, unique in anything this man says. He is a Socialist. Perhaps even a hardcore Communist. If this man becomes president he will fill our government agencies, including the Military, with people whose philosophical reasoning’s are based on those that conform to the Port Huron Statement. Obama’s election will set the stage for America’s downfall as a Democratic Republic, and usher in the era of Totalitarianism in America. The people in our nation have been captivated by a Liar. Because America has toyed with Abortion, Euthanasia, same sex attraction, Embryonic Stem Cell research, and the destruction of the Family, it will reap the harvest of the self-serving demigod, Barack Hussein Obama.
A test again to see if my comment is received.
The real question in this pivotal Presidential election year–which Party can win the Centrists–will become moot if Israel attacks Iran. The recent saber-rattling, Pentagon leaks, and non-supportive statement of military action against Iran by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs are likely designed to test public opinion, to probe the enemy’s reaction, and to gain important surveillance intelligence. As the Chairman rightly points out, the U.S. can’t afford to take pre-emptive military action against Iran. Almost as certain is the fact that Israel will not allow such an obvious threat to go unchallenged.
As compared to past situations, the U.S. has an advantage over Russia and especially oil-thirsty China with 15+ division strength on the ground in the theater along with all the assorted naval and air force elements. We can assure Israel of a safe Iraqi air and ground corridor and U.S. support for Israel is guaranteed by treaty should Iran counterattack with high-explosive missiles.
Look at where Iran sits…between Afghanistan/Pakistan to the east, Iraq to the west, and the Persian Gulf to the south. Iran is not only part of “The Prize” in the sense of proven and unproven oil reserves…the country is an obvious strategic asset in the Islamic Jihad. Iraq and Afghanistan would be critical staging areas in an eventual pincher movement.
Once Israel pulls the trigger, Barry Obama is a historical footnote.
The sheer volume of Senator Obama’s flip-flops in recent days leaves me very skeptical about his patriotic speeches. I suspect that, in reality, he shares most all of the anti-American values of the radical left.
Senator Obama has been described as a black John Kerry–truly from the left. I believe that description is more-or-less accurate and may extend to embrace the obvious patriotism of Sen. Kerry. I never liked the idea of the ’swift-boat’ treatment of John Kerry…the medals were his to do with what he wanted. As a veteran I would not have followed his example but this is America and a person must have the right to freedom of speech no matter how it might upset others.
An American who seeks to keep us from war is no less a patriot than one who argues vehemently to wage war. Voters who decide this election based on their perception of who is more patriotic are truly misguided. Barack Obama is not the Manchurian candidate. He is an untested liberal politician who satisfies the 2 requirements for Presidential office–he is over 35 years of age and a native-born American.