I didn’t think Obama’s Berlin speech was as bad as Scott did. Actually, I could have given large chunks of it myself, although perhaps not with a straight face. It will no doubt contribute to the dawning realization among Obama’s nutroot fans that he doesn’t need them and doesn’t much care what they think.
There were, of course, problematic parts, like introducing himself as a “citizen of the world.” These carefully-chosen words, loaded in the context of the current campaign, were obviously intended to advance the image that Obama wants to present to American voters. It’s far from clear, however, that “citizen of the world” is at the top of the list of qualities voters are looking for this year.
Much of what Obama said about Berlin was good, but he drew a perverse conclusion from the city’s history:
People of the world, look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.
But the “world” didn’t “stand as one” during the Cold War, the West did. The world was divided into armed, hostile camps that fought a series of proxy wars. The Berlin airlift, and later the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, exemplified the West’s determination to hold firm against an implacable foe, not some kind of mystical world-wide unity. Obama’s apparent failure to understand this, although it is implicit in other sections of his speech, is disconcerting.
Obama’s pontifications are sometimes harmless, but on other occasions they threaten disaster. Like this one:
As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.
No, actually, they aren’t. But here’s where the rubber meets the road on Obama’s “citizen of the world” bloviation. Obama has already said that other countries may not allow us to continue using so much energy. As President, he apparently would be sympathetic to the idea that we need to shut down those cars in Boston. But, while Obama may be a citizen of the world, he’ll only be President of the United States, so he won’t have any influence over factories in Beijing. That’s one of many reasons why our President needs to be clear on where his citizenship, and his loyalties, lie.
Obama added this:
This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children to a world where the oceans rise, and famine spreads, and terrible storms devastate our lands.
Let us resolve that all nations, including my own, will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere.
In truth, reducing the world’s carbon consumption will have zero effect on the oceans or on storms, but it will greatly exacerbate famine. Hunger is caused by poverty, and less energy consumption means more poverty and less agricultural production.
What is really significant about these ruminations is that Obama continues to cement himself into an anti-drilling position. During the weeks to come, his resistance to energy development will hurt his campaign much more than images of cheering Germans will help it.
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