PrintMay 28, 2010
Obama the Abject
President Obama promised us we would make history. We certainly have. Last week, he invited Mexican President Felipe Calderón to the White House. There, in the presence of his foreign guest, President Obama humiliated himself and us by his attacks on the new Arizona law passed to cope with illegal immigrants.
But it got worse. Soon, Calderón was invited to address a joint session of Congress. There, in the well of the House of Representatives, the Mexican leader himself sharply criticized Arizona's law. He was applauded by Democrats from both houses, even given a standing ovation.
This was surely historic. Never before has the United States of America submitted to such an indignity. Never before has any president or Congress so abjectly allowed our country to be maligned.
This takes some doing. Jimmy Carter previously held the record for supineness. Carter allowed Iran to hold 52 Americans hostage for 444 days in Tehran from 1979 to 1981. During that time of "American Held Hostage" -- ABC News' formulation, not mine -- Iranian hostage-takers were allowed to shuttle back and forth to sessions of the United Nations. Their diplomatic immunity was scrupulously respected by an impotent administration.
Nor is this a partisan criticism. President Richard Nixon also humiliated America when he ordered Air Force One to land at Shanghai in 1972 before proceeding on to Beijing. It was a jet-age kowtow. Once in the Forbidden City, Nixon toasted Mao Zedong, the murderer of millions. Nixon wished Chairman Mao long life even as his honoree had brutally cut short the lives not only of his own long-suffering people, but also of thousands of American GIs in the Korean War.
We know Obama dislikes Winston Churchill. He pitched Churchill's bust out of the White House upon entering. He probably has never read about Churchill's famous speech to Congress during those stern days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Within a week of December 7, 1941 -- "a date," as President Roosevelt said, "which will live in infamy" -- Americans found themselves dragged into a world war against Japan and Nazi Germany.
Can anyone imagine the reaction if Churchill had chosen that moment of history -- December 26, 1941 -- to carp about the United States' tardy entry into World War II?
As Prime Minister, Churchill might have reminded his listeners in that Joint Session of Congress how Woodrow Wilson had failed even to submit the signed French Guarantee Treaty of 1919 to the Senate for ratification. A strong case could have been made by Churchill that Wilson's failed diplomacy after World War I was the reason they were all embroiled in a Second World War. He did go so far as to call this terrible new war "the unnecessary war."
There would be no such gross insult to America, no such political insanity from Churchill at that sublime moment at history's center stage. He had nothing but praise for the Great Republic. He had nothing but gratitude for a United States that had "drawn the Sword of Freedom and thrown away the scabbard."
Churchill was cheered lustily by Members of Congress -- from both sides of the aisle. Democrats and Republicans applauded the brave Prime Minister. He had been given the supreme honor of giving the lion's roar when Britain stood alone. Now, he was the first foreign leader to address a Joint Session of Congress. As he said at the time, if his father had been American, and his mother British, instead of the other way around, he might have gotten here on his own.
Barack Obama's mother was American. And he did get here on his own. He may be our president, but it has yet to be shown that he understands what it means to be an American. The first lesson might be: Never apologize for your country to any foreign audience. Never. And never stand by while your country's colors are trailed in the dirt. Never. Never.
Robert Morrison is a senior fellow at Family Research Council in Washington.
