April 7, 2009
Obama skipped Normandy visit to avoid offending Germany?
A mostly overlooked Daily Telegraph report instructs us that White House advance teams went through the motions of exploring a presidential visit to Normandy, where thousands of American soldiers are buried after giving their lives in the cause of defeating Nazism.
White House officials travelled to France at the start of March to discuss a visit by Mr Obama to Omaha Beach, the site of the American Cemetery, established in 1944 just after D-Day and where 9,387 American personnel are buried. Among them is Theodore Roosevelt Jr the eldest son of the 26th US President.French officials and senior American military officers walked with White House staff through the cemetery discussing how the two presidents might follow the same route. But even before their trip, the White House had decided that Mr Obama would not travel there this week."It wasn't going to happen," said an American official in Washington. "We went through the motions to placate President Sarkozy but giving special treatment to France was not on our agenda."During this trip, we wanted to maintain a balance between the British, German and France". A White House spokesman in London declined to comment. Last month, White House officials briefed that a Normandy visit had been considered but it had not been logistically possible.
Unless I am very mistaken, the German government, still our NATO ally, repudiates Nazism and celebrates the liberation of Germany from Hitler's rule. How Germany would be offended by a presidential visit to Normandy needs explanation. Was the President worried about offending neo-Nazis in Germany? Was he worried about the reaction in the Muslim world, toward whose faith he expressed his "deep appreciation," many of whose leaders (for example, the Grand Muftti of Jerusalem) were supportive of the Nazis during World War II?
Hat tip: Debbie Schlussel
To comment on this or any other American Thinker article or blog, you must be a subscriber to our ad-free service. Login to your subscription to access the comments section. You can subscribe on a monthly basis for $6.79 a month or for a year at $69.99
Login
Subscribe / Change PwdAd Free / Commenting Login
FOLLOW US ON
Recent Articles
- Massachusetts vs. the Second Amendment
- Florida Voter Fraud Case Could Overturn U.S. House Race
- Not Your Grandfather’s Foreign Aid
- Christian Morality, Migration, And The Good Samaritan
- Shaken, Not Stirred: The James Bond Complex
- Who is the Real Unelected President?
- Democrats Prepare for the Big House
- Democrat Hypocrisy on Born-Alive Care
- Government Downsizing and the Left’s Instinctive Outcry
- Trump is Closing the Border. Now What About Legal Immigration?
Blog Posts
- The Bibas family and the antisemitic moral corruption of the world’s institutions
- It’s official: We live under the most bought-off Congress in history
- Leftist lawyer Benjamin Crump calls for crime to be legalized because it's just part of black culture
- Massachusetts schools teach antisemitism
- The deadliest mass crime wave in American history—who should be held accountable?
- Trump and Hegseth are killing it
- The death of community banks?
- Time for RFK Jr. to hit Big Pharma TV commercials
- Cloward-Piven hits the courts
- What’s behind Arab rejection of Trump’s plan for Gaza
- Uganda upset at lack of condoms, lubricants — blames USAID funding freeze
- Why would anyone be a Democrat?
- Protecting the Second Amendment is protecting the First
- A tale of two tax plans
- Another case of demand for racism exceeding supply