Posted by
Sean Engmann on Wednesday, July 08, 2009 3:40:20 AM
The global Obama love-fest hit a speed bump this week in Russia where a funny thing happened: the Russian people and their leaders greeted Obama with skepticism. The soaring rhetoric that has wooed audiences from Prague to Cairo met a tepid response at the New Economic School yesterday. Perhaps the best line in response to the speech came from Sergei Markov, a parliamentary deputy in Putin's United Russia Party, who said, "We are maybe the one country in the world where there is no Obamamania, for us he is not the president of the world but the President of the United States of America." Bravo, Mr. Markov, that's exactly what we want our leader to be, America's leader first who happens to lead the world. Unfortunately, we have a megalomanic as President who routinely puts himself and his grandiose vision above the United States.
The whole Obama global tour has had the principle aim of putting person above country and ideology above strategy. The theme of the speech in Russia was very similar to that of Cairo, that we should hit some sort of reset button and start our relations anew. Why hit the reset button when you are ahead in the game? High level rhetoric does little to heal wounds on either side, and in fact, Obama's reset strategy gives legitimacy to those who feel that they have grievances against America. Compromising our interests does not lead to goodwill, rather, it opens us up to further exploitation. History has shown time and again that the future does not belong to the faint of heart, no matter how "enlightened" or educated, it belongs to the brave and the bold.
Obama's tarnishing of our country around the world is shameful, but it illustrates exactly who the man is and what he believes. Obama does not identify himself as an American at heart, but rather a citizen of the world. He doesn't believe that his success is a story of the American Dream, a product of our great country that could not happen anywhere else, on the contrary, he believes that he, by himself was able to overcome a rigged, racist, unjust American system in order to become President. I doubt he attributes any of his success to the greatness of this country, which is ironic considering that many voted for him because they were inspired by what his story illustrated was possible in this country. Abroad, Obama believes that America is an unjust, imperialistic, meddling country, which is why he has been so soft abroad. He doesn't think that America should be the leader of the world, but rather a member of a global community, so he is consciously weakening us.
Perhaps the reason why the Russian people greeted Obama so tepidly was because in their long history, they have seen this play before. The Russians have lived under oppression for centuries in their history, so it is typical that they would greet the next messiah with skepticism. The Russian leaders, though, are all too happy to indulge in Obama's visit as he represents the weakest American leader since Jimmy Carter and they can use his rhetoric to get easy concessions like the US's abandoning of missile defense in central Europe. With Putin as a fiercely nationalistic, tough leader, I can only pray thay we are not facing a reversal of Reagan-Gorbachev.