PrintNovember 15, 2007
Barack Obama: Global Citizen?
Does Roger Cohen of the New York Times realize that all this hubbub about Obama knowing the world rests on his brief experience in Indonesia when he was a young boy?
His biological father divorced his Kansan mother when he was very young, she married an Indonesia man and moved to Indonesia-which he left when he was a kid after a relatively brief period after a time after his mother and stepfather divorced, and he moved to Hawaii-which last time I checked was an American state and was during Obama's stay there, How does this uniquely qualify him to be an international expert?
His biological father divorced his Kansan mother when he was very young, she married an Indonesia man and moved to Indonesia-which he left when he was a kid after a relatively brief period after a time after his mother and stepfather divorced, and he moved to Hawaii-which last time I checked was an American state and was during Obama's stay there, How does this uniquely qualify him to be an international expert?
Which brings us to Barack Hussein Obama, the Democratic candidate with a Kenyan father, a Kansan mother, an Indonesian stepfather, a childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia and an impressionable experience of the Muslim world.
This would make him the first "gloabalized American leader" (as Michael Ignatieff-the deputy leader of Canada's opposition Liberal party opines). Hmmm...how about John Kennedy who served in the military during the war in the Pacific and was seriously injured during battle defending his nation and whp spent a lot of time in pre-WW2 England and who took his international responsibilities seriously? Richard Nixon who, as Vice President, flew all over the world during the Eisenhower Presidency and who brought about detente with Russia and opened China to the West?
Seems to me that in the last Presidential election, the touting of foreigner's having an opinion about the American presidential candidates was something that bedeviled the Kerry campaign. Perhaps, Richard Cohen (who advocates that Al Jazeerah be widely broadcast in America) might start thinking about America and to care less what the rest of the world thinks?
The idea, articulated by Andrew Sullivan, that a man with a Muslim past would work wonders for our image in the Arab world, is somewhat offensive. Nations are battling each other over in the Middle East, regardless of Muslims leading those nations. The mere fact of having Barack Obama as our leader is not going to quell the anti-Americanism (and animosity that flows in many other directions) that animate the Middle East. That goal should be the focus of a change in their leadership, not ours.
I think it is telling that Cohen has to rely on former officials or oficials who have lost races (Ignatieff) for his expertise. No wonder he thinks we can learn from Al Jazeera because it seems that is where he has been doing his learning.
