"Remember the days of the world,
understand the years of
generation after generation.
Ask your father and he will tell you;
your elders, and they will inform you."
Devarim /Deuteronomy 32:7
Our treasured commentator and friend, Mannie Sherberg writes that "We have much to be worried about." He informs us all:
Charles Krauthammer called the coronation speech "a hymn to big government." Ben Stein called it "a trivial speech in a serious time." Both are correct -- but I think Stein's evaluation was the more comprehensive. This was an astonishingly trivial speech -- a puny, piddling, small-potatoes speech that left out everything that's most important. The unalloyed leftism -- the hymn to big government -- was to be expected; Obama drank the Kool-aid at a very young age -- and we've all known for a long time that it's still coursing through his system. What wasn't to be expected was the utter failure to mention the cardinal fact of our time: that America is at war with a worldwide totalitarian ideology that may well prove more lethal than either Naziism or Communism -- and that we must therefore, before anything else, make sure we win that war. What wasn't to be expected was Obama's complete silence on this truly existential threat.
And what wasn't to be expected was his channeling Neville Chamberlain and talking about "peace in our time."
Imagine: the president of the United States quoting the most infamous, the most ignominious, the most shameful four-word phrase in all of modern history and using it to describe what he intends for us. Is he that tone-deaf? Does he know nothing about Munich?
Yes, this was a hymn to big government, a paean to the confiscation of wealth, a psalm of praise for entitlements and never-ending nannyism. But above all else, it was a delusional denial of reality. And all of this comes just a day or two after the report that General Mattis may be turned out to pasture because he's a hard-liner on Iran. We have much to be worried about.
I would only add that not least among our worries should be the relative youth, ignorance and inexperience of the voting public in general, and of Obama's speechwriters in particular. And of course there's the stupidity of the Bogus POTUS himself (not that he isn't cunning).
In his second inaugural address yesterday:
... we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice – not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of ... tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice.
Remember the days of the world:
Seeking to avoid war in Europe, leaders from Britain, France and Italy signed the Munich Pact on September 29, 1938, agreeing to Hitler's demands and ceding Czechoslovakia to Germany. Upon his return to England the following day, the architect of the appeasement policy, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, declare[d] "peace in our time."
The following is the wording of the statement that Neville Chamberlain waved when he stepped off the plane after the conference in Berlin had ended on 30 September, 1938.
"We, the German Führer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for two countries and for Europe.
"We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.
"We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe."
Chamberlain read this statement to a cheering crowd in front of 10 Downing St. and said;
"My good friends this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace in our time."
Excerpted from "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich."
UPDATE:
Other problematic utterances in Obama's speech are covered by Rick Richman at Commentary ("preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action") and Bill Kristol at the Weekly Standard ("But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war, who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends, and we must carry those lessons into this time as well").
Then there's New Gingrich, who said 80% of the speech is very good but the other 20 percent is "goofy left-wingism." And last and least, Chris Matthews - ever the toady to this president - continues to worship him as the first black Lincoln, or Chicago Jesus, or something like that...
Posted by: Elan | Wednesday, 23 January 2013 at 01:17 PM