Just Shoot Me
Peter Kirsninow at The Corner sums up the response to Obama's speech yesterday among drive-time radio callers:
Judging from the local drive time radio shows, we bitter, religious pistol-packers here in flyover country remembered only two things from Obama's Berlin visit: the phrase "citizen of the world" and Obama's failure to visit wounded troops at Landstuhl and Ramstein.
He goes on to explain that:
[P]eople were put off by Obama proclaiming himself to be a citizen of the world when — according to several callers — he regularly gives indications he's not particularly enthused about being a citizen of the United States.
Yeah, like the time he said he was a "proud citizen of the United States" immediately before calling himself a citizen of the world!
Seriously, it's this kind of stuff that makes me crazy. As many others have noted, just about every politician has referred to him or herself as a "citizen of the world" at some point in their career. From a quick google search, that list includes Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Rudy Giuliani, among others. And as numerous outlets are reporting today, Obama didn't visit the troops at Landstuhl and Ramstein because the Department of Defense told him not to!
Of course none of this stopped right-wing blowhards from pushing these false memes yesterday and generating all this misdirected outrage. Sadly, this is what American politics has become in the age of Rush Limbaugh.
posted by A.L. at 12:27 PM
5 Comments:
AFFIRMATION
I, the undersigned, do hereby, willingly and consciously, declare myself to be a Citizen of the World. As a World Citizen, I affirm my planetary civic commitment to WORLD GOVERNMENT, founded on three universal principles of One Absolute Value, One World, and One Humanity which constitute the basis of World Law. As a World Citizen I acknowledge the WORLD GOVERNMENT as having the right and duty to represent me in all that concerns the General Good of humankind and the Good of All. As a Citizen of World Government, I affirm my awareness of my inherent responsibilities and rights as a legitimate member of the total world community of all men, women, and children, and will endeavor to fulfill and practice these whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself.
Sadly, Obama apologists rationalize and justify the Messiah's delusions of grandeur as normal. They are not.
AL- here’s the thing. There is nothing inherently wrong with declaring oneself to be a citizen of the world (apart from the fact that, technically speaking, it is not true). However, when one is in the business of giving vague and platitudinous speeches that the adoring audience can interpret in whatever fashion it finds most congenial, you should expect that your choice of words will not be evaluated in a vacuum, but in light of the audience you have chosen. When Obama says in Germany that he is a citizen of the world, the question is not what did he mean by that (the answer probably being nothing), but rather what did he think that the 200,000 Germans he was speaking to would think he meant by that. Surely the answer is that he, if elected President, will represent the interests of all the people of the world, not just those narrow-minded, uncultured, gun-clinging Americans.
At least you shouldn’t be surprised that some Americans take it that way
Oh please, MLS. You're smarter than that. The "citizen of the world" phrase is something that virtually all politicians use when addressing an international audience. Reagan used it when addressing the U.N. So did JFK and the first president Bush. Giuliani used it all the time when he was mayor. All it means is that you realize you are a part of the human race and therefore you care about the world, not just your country. If you look up the text of any speech given by an American politician to an international audience, Republican or Democrat, you will see either that phrase or something substantively similar.
So, according to MLS's logic, if I were to say that I'm a citizen of the USA, then, my fellow citizens of [insert state here] would be perfectly correct to look at me with suspicion and mistrust. Not that they don't already, of course, for other reasons.
The rest of his comment is so far lacking in any logic as to be pointless to refute.
A.L.: Let's see ... you say you're a liberal, and you say you're a litigator. So how come you haven't had anything to say about the legal arguments that Bush and Cheney have committed high crimes and misdemeanors warranting impeachment?
One of the most impassioned and most persuasive proponents of impeachment is the conservative Constitutional attorney/scholar Bruce Fein. Fein and others contend that unless the Congress effectively challenges Bush&Co's abuses of power and violations of law, future presidents and their administrations will be able to engage in similar abuses with impunity.
Do you have any opinions on this critically important issue -- or are you content merely to address subjects such as the reaction to Obama's "citizen of the world" remark, which drive you crazy?
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