Glass Maze Every jumbled pile of person

Ich Bin Ein Obama Fan

Another beautiful speech from Obama, this one in Berlin:

One line in particular struck a real chord with me:

I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen – a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.

This is the exact opposite of everything that our government has stood for in the past eight years, and a complete rejection of the kind of American exceptionalism, insularity, and neo-imperialism that Bush has embraced since he decided he was the decider. It’s a promise to engage with the rest of humanity, rather than bully it into submission.

The right wing has produced its usual stream of daft bullshit in response — everything from complaints about the poster his campaign came up with for the event (OMG it’s got a picture of Obama in profile … just like Hitler!) to his unpatriotic inclusiveness (he said non-Americans also died on 9/11! why does he hate the troops?) to the fact that he gave the speech at all when he should be back home, eating at the Sausage Haus and lying about shit. But all of that is just the reflexive gnarling of a dumb, frightened animal. It’s ignorable, I think¹.

What bugs me more is the assertion, from some quarters, that the speech was too light on substance. That’s also bullshit, but it’s a meme that might have legs. Look: it’s true that there aren’t any concrete policy proposals here, but specificity isn’t the point of a speech like this: you don’t go to a different country, as a presidential candidate, and get into details. That stuff comes later. It’s much more important — especially now — to set the tone. What he needs to do, first, is reassure the rest of the world that we can produce politicians who are both charismatic and sane; and, second, that he sees America not as a giant imperialist child swinging reflexively at everything that frightens it, but as a global citizen. As a part of the world’s community.

This doesn’t make him weak, ok? It makes him strong, in all the ways that matter. Him, and us.

And yet, the democratic gong beats the sounds of anti-free trade rhetoric. The global message gets muddled sometimes when it involves the special interests. I will agree that the speech was great, but they all are. I am ready to elect him and hold him accountable!