Barack’s bad move

By Jennifer J. Foster

Published: July 24, 2008

... or non-move. According to the Associated Press:

Sen. Barack Obama scrapped plans to visit wounded members of the armed forces in Germany as part of his overseas trip, a decision his spokesman said was made because the Democratic presidential candidate thought it would be inappropriate on a campaign-funded journey.

The spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said Thursday that Obama made his decision out of respect for the servicemen and women ...

Bad decision.

I’m confused. Obama says he was making the Middle East leg of the trip as part of a congressional delegation, and he spoke to citizens of Berlin today as “a citizen of the world.“ But now he’s saying that since he’s there as a candidate, he can’t visit the troops who will be voting for president later this year?

First of all, if Obama thought it would be “inappropriate” to visit the troops on a campaign-funded journey, then why did he have his campaign set it up? Could it be that he never really intended to make the stop?

And even if he did intend to make the stop, do you think wounded servicemen and women care whether his trip is funded by the government or his campaign? This guy wants to be their commander-in-chief. I’m pretty sure they’ve earned their spot on his itinerary, no matter who’s funding the trip.

Not visiting wounded troops. Bad move, Barack.

As for the speech itself, some media outlets pegged the crowd there to hear it at 200,000. I watched the whole thing; I wouldn’t put it up there with his greatest efforts. It was a nice speech, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t hold a candle to his tour de force on race relations. Today he seemed like he was being careful—almost too careful. Whether he wanted to or felt like he had to, he shortened his pauses and barreled into the next phrase whenever the crowd began chanting his name, or “Yes we can.“ And the change of pace was obvious. There were a couple of times when he misspoke. All in all, the delivery was average; it was what we usually see from most politicians. But an average oratatorical performance by Barack Obama is below average for him.

Regarding the content of the speech (transcript here), I liked the parallels Obama drew between the Berlin Wall and the virtual walls of race, religion and economics that separate people around the world. The substance of the speech was solid. The one thing that seemed lacking—and to me, glaringly so—was the huge opportunity Obama missed to identify America before Europeans as the greatest country in the world. He set it up perfectly:

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

But instead, he said:

But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived, at great cost and great sacrifice, to form a more perfect union, to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world.

Doesn’t he still believe that America is still the greatest country in the world? Surely he does; he’s said so in previous domestic speeches.

Sure, some might say that such ethnocentrism is out of place on foreign soil and that it would fly in the face of the one-world message Obama was delivering. And those things are likely true. But in the end, isn’t it the opinions of Americans that should matter most to their president?

That first paragraph should have been followed with, “But America is still the greatest country in the world. She has done more for freedom and liberty than any other in the history of the world. Her people have fought against injustice, both within her borders and without. And she is still that shining city on a hill, the hope of humanity and the beacon of freedom that she has been ever since she was birthed as an idea in the minds of patriots who yearned to breathe free.“

And then he could have come back to the one-world thing by saying something like, “America is ready to lead again.“

Something like that!

Overall, I’d give Obama’s speech today a B- ... but, of course, we’re grading on the Obama curve.