NYC Letter: L'etat, c'est moi

Day 250 of CHOPE

Good morning. Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to address you for the first time as the 44th President of the United States. (Applause.) I come before you humbled by the responsibility that the American people have placed upon me, mindful of the enormous challenges of our moment in history, and determined to act boldly and collectively on behalf of justice and prosperity at home and abroad.

I have been in office for just nine months -- though some days it seems a lot longer. I am well aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world. These expectations are not about me. ...

As an African American, I will never forget that I would not be here today without the steady pursuit of a more perfect union in my country. ...

For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months.

Mr. Obama,
le Roi Soleil, extending his "c'est moi" radiance
to the adoring assembled
REMARKS TO THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY
NEW YORK September 23, 2009 (White House)

IT'S GOOD TO BE THE KING
2009 "Pretty Impressed With Me" UN Tour

Last week Mr. Obama gave another dispiriting flawed-old-America-great-new-president speech. This time to an adoring United Nations (and this). By our count Mr. Obama referred to himself 58 times ("I" 39X; "me" 6X; "my" 13X; this does not count innumerable instances of the royal "we"). Mr. Obama is not just boorish, he's an embarrassment.

ALL ABOUT OBAMA

OP-ED September 24, 2009 (WaPo) - But this address grows more disturbing on further reading. ... Obama’s rhetorical method in international contexts -- given supreme expression at the United Nations this week -- is a moral dialectic. The thesis: pre-Obama America is a nation of many flaws and failures. The antithesis: The world responds with understandable but misguided prejudice. The synthesis: Me. Me, at all costs; me, in spite of all terrors; me, however long and hard the road may be. How great a world we all should see, if only all were more like…me.

I can recall no other major American speech in which the narcissism of a leader has been quite so pronounced. ... Twice in his United Nations speech, Obama dares to quote Franklin Roosevelt. I have read quite a bit of Roosevelt’s rhetoric. It is impossible to imagine him, under any circumstances, unfairly criticizing his own country in an international forum in order to make himself look better in comparison. He would have considered such a rhetorical strategy shameful -- as indeed it is.

Mr. Obama's self-references are the least of it. Try making sense of what he says. What for example does this hash mean?

(A) Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside. (B) Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect. Each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its people and in its past traditions. (C) And I admit that America has too often been selective in its promotion of democracy. But that does not weaken our commitment; it only reinforces it. (D) There are basic principles that are universal; there are certain truths which are self-evident -- and the United States of America will never waver in our efforts to stand up for the right of people everywhere to determine their own destiny. (Applause.)

(A) Of course, democracy can and has been imposed from the outside -- and to good effect (e.g., post-war Japan and Germany, more recently in Iraq). (B) Is Mr. Obama conceding any form of government "rooted in the culture of its people and in its past traditions" is acceptable? How about government derived from a culture and traditions at variance with recognized human rights or not provisioned for representative government? How about longstanding tyrannical governments steeped in a culture of oppression and police state traditions that are challenged by bright new democratic revolutions (e.g., Hungary, Czechoslovokia, Poland, Ukraine)? (C) At (A) Mr. Obama obliquely criticizes America for imposing democracy. Two sentences down he criticizes America for limiting such impositions. We suppose America is selective to the extent that it has not upturned the entire world for democracy. America has calculated its best percentage plays for expending its prestige, treasure, and blood in accordance with its own interests and principles. Exactly what would Mr. Obama have America do differently? Mr. Obama finds fault with America's selective promotion of democracy, yet this reinforces his commitment to the promotion of democracy circumscribed by culture and traditions. This is the sort of rhapsodic mush that sounds as if it should mean something but makes no sense.

And finally (D). This blanket endorsement of self-determination ignores the propriety of a people self-determining its destiny. For example, Lebensraum was a form of self-determination. So was Kim Il Sung's "Fatherland Liberation War". So too the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. Hamas and Hezballah argue that suicide bombers and rocket attacks against the innocent are so much self-determination. [Pause.] Obviously America will not "stand up" for every self-determination.

And just what sort of feeble locution is "our efforts to stand up for" anyway? [Pause.] Of course, considering Mr. Obama's timid "efforts to stand up for the right of people everywhere to determine their own destiny", the feeble rhetoric tracks his feeble actions.

Read the whole speech and go mad.

CHOPE.

Sweetness. Weakness. Applause.