…and that’s putting it charitably.
Analyzing Barack Obama’s speech in front of 200,000, York says:
It’s a small passage from Obama’s Berlin speech, but this formulation, common in some circles, grates on some ears, like mine: “The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil.”Yes, the victims were from all over the globe — places like Brooklyn, and the Bronx, and Manhattan, and Queens, and Staten Island, and New Jersey — all over. And most were Americans, weren’t they?
Steve Benen makes the important point that
Much of the speech was about the common interests of the United States and Europe. Our challenges are their challenges. The dangers we face are the dangers they face. He was in Germany, and trying to remind them that terrorism hit Americans on 9/11, but those terrorists, in the process, also struck a blow against the Western world.
Perhaps it’s that conservatives have so trashed American public diplomacy (remember Karen Hughes’ brilliant tenure?), that they can’t even recognize it when they see it.
But it may even be worse than that. When George W. Bush addressed Congress in the wake of 9/11, and left conservatives fainting in the aisles with man-crushes, he emphasized:
Nor will we forget the citizens of 80 other nations who died with our own: dozens of Pakistanis; more than 130 Israelis; more than 250 citizens of India; men and women from El Salvador, Iran, Mexico and Japan; and hundreds of British citizens.
But IOKIYAR, and that doesn’t matter, and Barack is a dangerous un-American furrener!!!
