Posted by
Kenneth G. Davenport on Friday, July 25, 2008 9:20:58 PM
The story about Barack Obama snubbing the injured GIs in Germany is now making the rounds, and though it won't be widely reported by a media that has drunk the "Obama punch", it is a telling bit of news. As reported in various blogs and opinion pieces around the web, Obama was scheduled to visit troops injured in Afghanistan and Iraq at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. When he found out that he couldn't bring the press and his "posse" with him, however, Obama abruptly canceled the visit, choosing instead to work out at the gym at the Ritz Carlton in Berlin. When asked about the cancellation, the campaign came up with a lame excuse that it "would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign." Did they not know that before they had scheduled the visit in the first place? Such an explanation, of course, is the ultimate in spin; the real reason that Obama canceled the visit is that he didn't want to waste his time visiting wounded soldiers if it couldn't be recorded by the media. If he can't use it for his quest to become president, why bother?
This is an important window into the elite of the Democrat party, which doesn't particularly like the military and has little respect for their mission or their sacrifices. When the leader of the Senate and the House go on record as saying the "war is lost", while making every effort to end funding for the troops while they are in combat, it isn't difficult to draw the conclusion that they are anti-military. It is hard to "support the troops" while you are undermining their mission at the same time. It doesn't add up.
What does add up is that Barack Obama's Berlin visit was roundly enjoyed by the Germans, who saw the kind of president of the United States that they desperately want. The anti-cowboy. The kind of president who will speak eloquently about peace-though-negotiation, and who won't put the West in the uncomfortable position of actually acting in defense of liberty. The Germans (and most Europeans) of today don't remember Hitler's fascism and thus don't appreciate the value of decisive action, believing that all problems in this world can ultimately be worked out in the UN or other deliberative body. In the end, they want accommodation above all else. Obama, who wishes to talk to Iran without preconditions and who believes in being a "citizen of the world" first and foremost, is just the guy for them.
But it remains to be seen if he is just the guy for us here in America, where the vote will really count. The snub of the troops at Landstuhl goes hand-in-hand with what much of "middle America" finds so troubling about Obama: a sense of elitism and a disdain for those who "cling to religion and guns". In the primary season against Hillary, Obama had trouble with those "Reagan Democrats" and other white middle class voters in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. These are the very voters who remain unconvinced by "Obamamania", and who are less likely to vote willy-nilly for an empty mantra of "change". They see Obama as someone who courts their votes by day and bad-mouths them by night. They know that Obama sees himself as superior, and it just doesn't sit well with them. These voters see themselves as the heart and soul of America -- not the Hyde Park/Harvard Square types who run the Democrat party. That's precisely why Hillary stuck it out in the primary to the bitter end -- because she knows that her supporters are not naturally his supporters. For Obama, it is too bad that the Berliners don't have a vote come November.
To me, of course, the whole Obama trip this past week had an air of arrogance about it; as if he has earned the right to speak from the Brandenburg Gate, where JFK famously said "Ich bin ein Berliner" and where Ronald Reagan challenged the Soviets to "tear down this wall". Kennedy and Reagan had earned the right to make those speeches from such a symbolic perch as warriors of the Cold War. In the end, Obama bowed to pressure and selected another venue from which to speak. But the question remains: what has Obama ever done that he should even consider speaking from such an historically significant place? For that matter, what has Obama done to qualify him to be President of the United States?
The answer is nothing. But that doesn't matter to him, because he's absolutely convinces of his ability to lead the free world, healing the planet, solving world hunger and parting the oceans while he's at it. He is, after all, the change he's been waiting for.