B. Hussein's Misconception of History

The BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA Magical Mystery Tour last week was capped off by a perfectly staged “event” before 200,000 Berliners. Prior to Barry Hussein’s much hyped speech, his campaign, and the German government, provided a free concert and free beer to draw the crowd. (I suppose I could get 200,000 potheads and drunks to listen to me with enough free beer too!) For such trouble and expense, the speech had little substance; just a lot of warm & fuzzy, one-worldism along with a breathtaking misconception of history; to wit: the recalling of the Berlin Airlift of 1948.

The airlift was an early and critical success for the West in the Cold War, with clear relevance to our own time, the war in Iraq, and the free world's conflict with radical Islam. But having reached back 60 years to that pivotal hour of American leadership, Hussein Obama proceeded to draw from it exactly the wrong lessons.

The Soviet Union had blockaded western Berlin on June 24, 1948, choking off access to the city by land and water and threatening 2.5 million people with starvation. Moscow was determined to force the United States and its allies out of Berlin. To capitulate to Soviet pressure, as Obama rightly noted, "would have allowed Communism to march across Europe." Yet many in the West advocated retreat, fearing that the only way to keep the city open was to use the atomic bomb - and launch World War III.

For President Truman, retreat (unlike today’s Democrats) was unthinkable. "We stay in Berlin, period," he decreed. Overriding the doubts of senior advisers, including Secretary of State George C. Marshall and General Omar Bradley, the Army Chief of Staff, Truman ordered the Armed Forces to begin supplying Berlin by air.

Military planners initially thought that with a "very big operation," they might be able to get 700 tons of food to Berlin. Within weeks, the Air Force was flying in twice that amount every day, as well as supplies of coal.

"Pilots and crew were making heroic efforts," David McCullough recorded in his sweeping biography of Truman. "At times planes were landing as often as every four minutes - British Yorks and Dakotas, America C-47s and the newer, much larger, four-engine C-54s . . . Ground crews worked round the clock. "We were proud of our Air Force during the war. We're prouder of it today," said The New York Times. (To suppose the NY Times expressing that opinion today ‘requires a suspension of disbelief.’)

Yet the pressure to abandon Berlin persisted. The CIA argued that the airlift had worsened matters by "making Berlin a major test of US-Soviet strength" and affirming "direct US responsibility" for West Berlin. The airlift was bound to fail, the intelligence analysts warned. Truman didn't waver. "We'll stay in Berlin - come what may," he wrote in his diary on July 19. "I don't pass the buck, nor do I alibi out of any decision I make." (My! How times have changed!)

It would take nearly a year and more than 277,000 flights. But in the end it was the Soviets who backed down. On May 12, 1949, the blockade ended - a triumph of American prowess and perseverance, and a momentous vindication for Truman.

But not once in his Berlin speech did Obama acknowledge Truman's fortitude, or even mention his name. Nor did he mention the US Air Force, or the 31 American pilots who died during the airlift.

Indeed, Obama seemed to go out of his way not to say plainly that what saved Berlin in that dark time was America's military might. Save for a solitary reference to "the first American plane," he never described one of the greatest American operations of the postwar period as an American operation at all. He spoke only of "the airlift," "the planes," "those pilots." Perhaps their American identity wasn't something he cared to stress amid all his "people of the world" salutations and talk of "global citizenship."

"People of the world," Obama declaimed, "look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one." But the world didn't stand as one during the Cold War; it was riven by an Iron Curtain. For more than four decades, America and the West confronted an implacable enemy on the other side of that divide. What finally defeated that enemy and ended the Cold War was not harmony and goodwill, but American strength and resolve.

Obama's speech was a paean to international cooperation. "Now is the time to join together," he said. "It was this spirit that led airlift planes to appear in the sky above our heads." No - it was a Democratic president named Truman, who had the audacity to order an airlift when others counseled retreat, and the grit to see it through when others were ready to withdraw.

Sixty years later, it is a very different kind of Democrat who is running for president. Obama may have wowed 'em in Berlin, but he's no Harry Truman.

He Ventured Forth . . .

Excellent satire! I could not have tweaked Barry Hussein's messianic complex any better!

GMWinslow

The Tennessee Conservative

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From UK The Times

July 25, 2008

He ventured forth to bring light to the world

The anointed one's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers

By: Gerard Baker

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

• In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the

Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.

And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.

The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.

And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”

Grand President of the World

Obama’s “Grand President of the World” speech fell flat. In fact, parts of it were downright embarrassing, perhaps prompted by the need to score another historic “first.” It began with B. Hussein’s embarrassing claim at the outset that “I know that I don’t look like the Americans (wearing his ‘blackness’ openly) who’ve previously spoken in this great city.”

Never to be bothered by pesky little facts that may get in the way of self-congratulation, it seems to have escaped His Omnipotence that two distinguished blacks have served as secretary of State, representing the U.S. at the highest diplomatic level in Europe and around the world for the past seven years.

As always, there’s no lack of self-regard: “Now the world will watch and remember what we do here — what we do with this moment.” But there’s a complete absence of irony in a phrase that unconsciously recalls Lincoln’s modest prediction that “the world will little note or long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they” — the honored dead — “did here.”

It does not help that Obama can’t quite make up his mind about walls, the metaphor meant to hold the speech together. “The fall of the Berlin Wall brought new hope,” Obama rightly says. “But that very closeness,” Obama goes on to say in the next sentence, “has given rise to new dangers — dangers that cannot be contained within the borders of a country or by the distance of an ocean.”

But wait. This unwalled, borderless world where transnational threats abound is now threatened by — you guessed it — new walls? And these new walls in turn cut off the ties that bind, while “the burdens of global citizenship” — (Barf Alert) — “continue to bind us together.” Obama thus concludes: “That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.”

By now most American uncouth rubes, such as yours truly, are probably wondering what happened to the sound adage that good fences make good neighbors?

The result is an intellectual shipwreck.

The upshot is that this speech was an another judgment call that Obama got wrong. No one forced him to give the first-ever presidential campaign speech before a mass audience of non-voters overseas. And he can’t say he wasn’t warned, considering these pointed remarks from the German chancellor’s spokesman:

It’s unusual to hold election rallies abroad. No German candidate for high office would even think of using the National Mall (in Washington) or Red Square in Moscow for a rally because it would not be seen as appropriate.

In case the freshman (inexperienced) Illinois senator missed the point, the chancellor herself later added: “If the candidate — or any other candidate is elected, then (he) is welcome to speak as president before the Brandenburg Gate.” Even some American reporters, heretofore Barry Hussein's biggest boosters, raised the same concerns about a premature victory lap, as evinced in this Politico item:

“It is not going to be a political speech,” said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. “When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally.

“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter reminded the adviser.

Indeed, but does the presumptuous Barack Hussein Obama realize this?

Symbolism and Grandiloquent Speeches

America, I would hope, is coming to the conclusion that all there has ever been to Barack Obama is symbolism and grandiloquent speeches. There is the symbolism of him as the (potential) first black president. (Sorry Bill and Jesse, Obamessiah has elbowed you out of the way!) And there is his ability to give portentous speeches in high-flown Harvard rhetoric, perfectly pitched to sound thoughtful to college-educated liberals--without actually saying anything.

And, surprise – surprise, here we go again with another of Barack Hussein’s patented Big Speeches, this time on Iraq. It is pitched to sound sincere and intellectual, and to sell us on his allegedly superior foreign-policy judgment--so long as we drift through it and don't start asking any questions.

The speech has two purposes. One is to artfully evade Obama's massive misjudgment of the "surge," which he unequivocally opposed. Thus, while he half-acknowledges the enormous turnaround in Iraq, here is how he describes its cause:

“As I have said many times, our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence. General Petraeus has used new tactics to protect the Iraqi population. We have talked directly to Sunni tribes that used to be hostile to America, and supported their fight against al Qaeda. Shiite militias have generally respected a cease-fire. Those are the facts, and all Americans welcome them.”

Here's a tip. When Obama begins a sentence with "As I have said many times," this means that he is about to contradict everything he has said before. Hey! B. Hussein – were you lying to us then, or are you lying to us now?

He has shown willful ignorance about what the surge actually consisted of and what it has done. He says that we "talked directly to Sunni tribes that used to be hostile to America." Well, we did a little more than talk! We backed up the Sunni "Awakening" movement with some serious military action--which is precisely what the extra "surge" troops were needed for. Can ya here me now?

But the most ridiculous line is that "Shiite militias have generally respected a cease-fire." This Spring saw pitched fighting between Iraqi troops and the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army militia--fighting that ended because the Mahdi Army lost. Does Obama not even watch the news? More than likely, the only news he is interested in is that which features him!

But that is not what is most interesting about the speech. What is most interesting is its main purpose, which is to make it sound as if Obama is offering a whole new strategic direction for the War on Terrorism--while he declares that he would implement precisely the policies that are already being followed by the “Evil” Bush administration.

He says that "True success" in Iraq--note that he has even borrowed Bush's habit of saying "success" in place of "victory"--"will take place when we leave Iraq to a government that is taking responsibility for its future--a government that prevents sectarian conflict, and ensures that the al Qaeda threat which has been beaten back by our troops does not reemerge." But that is precisely what is already happening. Sectarian killings in Iraq, for example, have dropped to zero for about ten weeks running.

And how does Obama propose to ensure that we keep on enjoying this "true success" in Iraq? "We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010--one year after Iraqi Security Forces will be prepared to stand up; two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, we'll keep a residual force to perform specific missions in Iraq: targeting any remnants of al Qaeda; protecting our service members and diplomats; and training and supporting Iraq's Security Forces."

Note the part about the "residual" combat force, whose size Obama never specifies, which will target the remnants of al Qaeda and train and support Iraqi forces--which is precisely the end result envisioned by the Bush administration if the current progress in Iraq continues.

But maybe the big difference is that Obama will stick to his 16-month timetable no matter what, while Bush and McCain want to make withdrawal dependent on conditions on the ground. Well no, Obama would "make tactical adjustments" after consulting with "commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government."

That final flip-flop that the left has been dreading, when Obama throws out his commitment to a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq? It just happened. I wonder how long it will take them to notice.

Obama's policies for Afghanistan and Pakistan also read like a giant "me-too" to the current administration. His "new strategy" is to do more of what we're already doing: increase troops, increase economic aid, and try jawboning the Pakistani government into fighting the militants.

But the biggest piece of misdirection in the whole speech is about Iran. One of the centerpieces of Obama's strategy is a plan to "secur[e] all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states." So that means shutting down Iran's nuclear weapons program. How does he propose to do that?

Preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons is a vital national security interest of the United States.... I commend the work of our European allies on this important matter, and we should be full partners in that effort.... We will...present a clear choice. If you abandon your nuclear program, support for terror, and threats to Israel, there will be meaningful incentives. If you refuse, then we will ratchet up the pressure, with stronger unilateral sanctions; stronger multilateral sanctions in the Security Council, and sustained action outside the UN to isolate the Iranian regime. That's the diplomacy we need

So he'll cooperate closely with our European allies to offer the Iranians incentives to stop their nuclear program and threaten them with sanctions and diplomatic "isolation" if they refuse. In other words: precisely the policy the Bush administration has followed for the past six years, and especially since the summer of 2006--all with no results.

So on these issues, there is nothing to Obama's speech. It is a whole bunch of pompous clichés--stuff like "it falls to us to act with the same sense of purpose and pragmatism as an earlier generation, to join with friends and partners to lead the world anew"--wrapped around the conventional wisdom.

And that's all there ever has been to Barack Obama: a peacock, excessively vain, excessively weak, and excessively variable and unsteady – jejune, inane, and puerile; pandering to crowds with symbolism and grandiloquent speeches.

A Lesson That Should Be Taught In All Schools

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock, did something not to be forgotten.

On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom. When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks.

Looking around, confused, they asked, 'Ms. Cothren, where're our desks?'

She replied, 'You can't have a desk until you tell me what you have done to earn the right to sit at a desk.'

They thought, 'Well, maybe it's our grades.' 'No,' she said.

Maybe it's our behavior.' She told them, 'No, it's not even your behavior.

And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the
classroom.

By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms. Cothren's classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.

The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom.

Martha Cothren said, 'Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.'

At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.

Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall.

By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned.

Martha said, 'You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They
placed the desks here for you. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn,
to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it.'

By the way, this is a true story.

If you can read this, thank a teacher.

Since you read it in English, thank a soldier!

Obama’s Favorite Person – Himself!

Barack Hussein Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. For those who may be somewhat ‘history challenged’, the Brandenburg Gate was the focal point of the infamous Iron Curtain of Cold War fame, separating East Germany from West Germany. This is the spot where President Ronald Reagan demanded of Gorbachev, “…tear down this wall!”

As columnist Charles Krauthammer points out, “What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation. When President Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.”

Who, besides himself, is Barack Hussein representing? And more important, just what has he done in his pampered and scripted lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What is his claim to fame in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what President George Bush, The Elder called “a Europe whole and free”? (Bush The Elder presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall but, even he, modestly declined to go there for a victory lap.)

But Barack Hussein, the presumptuous little whelp, cannot (or refuses to) see the incongruity. It is as if a German politician took a campaign trip to America and demanded Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop for a campaign speech! (The German government is now trying to nudge Hussein Obama into look at other venues.)

Americans are just now beginning to notice Barack Hussein’s inflated ego issues. While there is certainly nothing new about narcissism in politics, there has never been a presidential nominee (even though not yet official) with a wider gap between his elevated opinion of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements.

Barack Hussein Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his credit. As a former Illinois state senator, he voted ‘present’ 130 times. A real profile in courage! As president of the Harvard Law Review, as a law professor and as a legislator, he has never produced a single notable piece of scholarship nor written a single memorable article. His only claim to literary fame is a biography of his favorite subject: himself!

It is a subject of which he is enamored. Upon achieving ‘presumptive nominee’ status, Barack Hussein declared it a great turning point in history – “generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment” – when, among other resulting wonders, “the rise of oceans began to slow.” As economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone. Modesty is a virtue of which Obama is destitute.

In the words of his own campaign, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Translating the royal ‘we’: “I am the one we’ve been waiting for.”

He lectures us, in customary “do as we say, not as we do” liberal-elitist fashion, that instead of worrying about immigrants learning English, "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish" -- a language Obama does not speak. He further admonishes us on how "embarrassing" it is that Europeans are multilingual but "we go over to Europe, and all we can say is, 'merci beaucoup.'" Obama speaks no French.

His wife assures us that Barack Hussein “…will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual . . .”, a not so subtle inference that only he, not ourselves, knows how we should live our lives. Folks, this is a very scary egomaniac!

At the opening of his campaign, the big question on informed minds was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?

A Question Of Character

“I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.” So says Retired General Wesley Clark in an effort to undermine Sen. John McCain’s executive experience. Clark, you may remember, ran for president, and failed, in 2004 on his record as a career military officer. This was after he was fired by Bill Clinton from his post as commander of the Balkans operation for character issues. (Just what does it take to be fired by Bill Clinton, of all people, for lack of character?) So his comment, which he has not retracted, was not just morally offensive but self-discrediting.

Being shot down may not endow one with executive acumen. And being tortured doesn’t necessarily bestow upon one the presidential ‘right stuff.’ But what a man does under fire might tell us volumes about the character we may discover in him as a president.

But Clark, that shinning example of character (not), misses the point of McCain’s experience.

McCain isn’t a hero because he was tortured. He’s a hero because he declined an offer by his torturer / captors to be released, refusing to leave his fellow Americans behind.

It may not take much effort to get shot down, as McCain says of himself, but it must take a considerable act of will to consign oneself to more deprivation and torture. It must take a level of courage unknown to most people (even some retired generals) to place concern for others above one’s on interest.

One would only hope that proven self-sacrifice, courage and loyalty are valuable considerations in the choice of a president.

Barrack Hussein Obama can make no similar claim nor point to a single instance in his pampered life, personal or political, to compare with the strength of character displayed by John McCain. Although B. Hussein Obama has not fought in any wars, we have been given a glimpse of how he responds to external pressures and where he draws the line on loyalty and self-sacrifice. When it comes to friends and family, it seems that B. Hussein is only concerned for himself.

A few months ago, when the racist anti-American Rev. Jeremiah Wright first reared his inconvenient (to B. Hussein) head, Obama was nearly demure when he said: “I can more disown (Wright) than I can disown my own white grandmother.”

He may not have disowned his white granny, but B. Hussein didn’t exactly paint a sympathetic or loving portrait of her either. He essentially threw her under the proverbial bus, saying that she made racist remarks while he was growing up.

After several weeks of sidling away from the Rev. Wright, his self-professed ‘old uncle’ and spiritual mentor, B. Hussein threw him, and his church of which he was a member for 20 years, under the bus with granny. But why then, after all those years, did Obama finally find the door? What had changed?

B. Hussein’s degree of self-interest is what had changed! As long as the Rev. Wright was the good ‘old uncle’ and was helping Obama with his bona fides within the African-American community, it did not matter about his paranoid, racist delusional ranting and raving. Only when Wright became a potential obstacle to Obama’s personal ambition, by saying that Obama was simply behaving as a politician, did Obama show Wright the danger of standing too close to the curb at a bus stop.

Now the question is: Which example of character would you want to see in a president?

I think you know the answer!