Sunday, June 07, 2009

So the president is above...America, now?

Wow, Evan Thomas, suck a little harder, why don't you?

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas brought adulation over President Obama’s Cairo speech to a whole new level on Friday, declaring on MSNBC: "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."
...
Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial."

Reagan was all about America. Well, so? Wouldn't that be only fitting, since he was, after all, the American president? Of course, this is what fits their narrative, but it's completely untrue. These cork soakers make it sound like Reagan completely ignored the role of European forces in the Normandy invasion. And anyone who's read or listened to Reagan's 1984 speech at Pointe du Hoc knows that was not the case. He highlighted the bravery of every nationality that stormed those beaches and damn these rotten, soulless people for trying to revise that history to make their pet president look better. Even if Reagan did play up America...so? Do these people not remember -- or worse, just not care -- about Americans' role in World War II even before Pearl Harbor and our cranking up our military and industrial might? The Lend-Lease program? The NRA's plea to "Send a gun to defend a British home"? (It should be noted, by the way, that the necessity of the latter arguably was ultimately brought about by British gun laws that perhaps most closely resembled those of present-day New Jersey and Massachusetts.) Damn it, that was AMERICANS that did that. And I don't see a damn thing wrong with playing up our role there because God only knows what would have happened had Americans just sat on their hands. But apparently to point all that out is being "parochial" and "chauvinistic" and "provincial." Pardon my french, but every last one of those people can get forked. If you know what I mean and I think you do.
(h/t Mike Hendrix)