Since
taking office, President Obama has made a habit of loading his
teleprompter with apologies and regrets for American behavior of
past years. I vividly remember that during the 2008 presidential
race, George Bush was blasted for seeming to criticize Barack Obama
as an appeaser during an address to Israel’s parliament. It was
considered poor form for Bush to take shots, direct or indirect, at
a U.S. dignitary while overseas. But since taking office, Obama and
his administration have made a habit of using overseas podiums to
rip at their predecessors by telling most of Europe that the United
States has been "arrogant and imperious" on the world
scene.
In a Jan. 26 interview with Al Arabiya, Obama accused America of
dictating rather than listening; that we are not perfect and that we
make mistakes. During a recent trip to Mexico, Hillary Clinton,
blamed America for the drug-fueled violence in Mexico. The woman who
fought immigration reform, and once courted the illegal alien vote
by declaring that "no person is illegal," blamed the
violence on America’s inability to prevent weapons from crossing
the border.
At the G20 in London, Obama blamed America’s regulatory system
for the world’s economic crisis. In Germany’s Der Spiegel, he
blamed Bush for the crisis. On April 3, in Strasbourg, France, Obama
accused America of being arrogant, dismissive, and derisive. At the
Summit of the Americas in Spain, Obama scolded America for being
disengaged and dictating its terms. In Latin American newspapers, he
lamented that the U.S. has not pursued and sustained engagement with
its neighbors in the past. We’ve apparently been too
imperialistic, with an aggressive policy of expansionism, extending
our political and economic influence around the globe.
Obama’s litany of "I’m sorries" follows on the
heels of decades of liberal guilt over everything from the success
of capitalism, which requires too much energy, to ending slavery to
ending a war against America by dropping a bomb on Hiroshima. If
America did it, it was wrong, and we apologize. I’ve yet to hear
our president give a speech on all the things our country has done
right. I’ve yet to see the teleprompter explain why it is that the
entire world strives to live in or be like America.
The Oval Office is no place for namby-pamby self-flagellation.
Obama’s grand, global apology tour isn’t presidential, and it
serves only to weaken our country. This ritual of formal apologies
most likely grew out of the transition from an attitude of pride in
America, to an attitude of shame - a feeling that this country is
the world’s primary villain. I will never understand it. President
Bush once said, "I will never apologize for the United States,
ever." Compare that with a president who can’t seem to stop
apologizing.
Before we allow the party of Cindy Sheehan to impose a guilty
verdict on 20th Century America for its arrogance and imperialistic
evils, let’s take a deep breath and take a step back for a moment.
It was American "aggression" that helped end slavery,
genocide, Fascism, Nazism and a few other unpleasant institutions
and regimes. Is there a need to apologize for our sacrifices over
two world wars and our Marshal Plan to rebuild Europe? If so
"excuse us" for Europe's confusion of arrogance with
leadership. The evidence of American sacrifice literally litters the
rest of the world.
There are 5,329 white crosses spread across a neatly-manicured
grass lawn at the American Cemetery in Ardennes, Belgium. Our uncle
Sonny lost his life during the Battle of the Bulge in an effort to
free the Europe, to whom we are now apologizing. His is one of those
crosses.
There are 4,410 white crosses at the American Cemetery at
Brittany, France, not far from where Obama apologized for our being
arrogant, dismissive, and derisive.
In Brookwood , England, a short drive from where Obama apologized
to the G20, the American cemetery houses 468 American patriots who
fought to keep Britain free during the Blitz. There are another
3,812 in Cambridge, England. I heard not one word from the
teleprompter about those men. There are another 5,525 in the
American cemetery at Epinal, France, yet it took a French president
to say, "The men and women of my generation heard their parents
talk about how in 1944, America returned to free Europe from the
horrifying tyranny that threatened to enslave it."
There are 4,402 American soldiers buried outside Florence, Italy,
7,992 more in Belgium, 10,489 in Lorraine, France, 5,076 in
Luxembourg, 14,246 in Meuse-Argonne, France, 8,301 in the
Netherlands, 9,387 in Normandy, France, 7,861 in Sicily, and tens of
thousands more across the very Europe our president is apologizing
to. I’ve travelled to every U.S. state but have yet to see a
cemetery full of patriots from other countries who gave their lives
for America.
Sadly, the U.S. apology tour isn’t over. As bizarre as it may
seem, President Obama’s upcoming June 5 trip to Dresden, Germany,
suggests that German revisionists may finally be getting the apology
they want. Representatives of the German and American governments
met in Dresden last Wednesday to discuss preparations for the visit.
The symbolic significance of this visit is absolutely unmistakable
for the German public. For Germans, Dresden is the symbol bar none
of German suffering at the hands of the Allies. The city was heavily
bombed by British and American air forces in February 1945, toward
the end of the war, resulting in as many as 25,000 civilian
casualties. Germany considers it a war crime; chances are our
president does too.
It is virtually unthinkable that Obama could give a speech in
Dresden and not allude to the bombing of the city. Watch carefully
for an apology for the brutality of America. Obama should spend the
day tending to the graves of our brave and glorious dead, who
sacrificed their lives so that Europe could live on to descend into
a pathetic, amoral collectivism. But we know he won’t.
The problem with all these apologies is that the world really
doesn’t hate America as much as the radicals and community
organizers, from whom Obama received his education and training, do.
Our country has nothing to apologize for to any freedom-loving
country. It is the likes of Reagan, Bush, Truman and Churchill, who
have done the unthinkable, conquering communist dictators to free
souls. I would like to officially apologize for President Obama and
his European Apology Tour. He does not speak for me or any of the 57
million Americans who voted against him.
Gary Wickert is an author, trial lawyer, and
town of Cedarburg supervisor, who lives with his wife and two sons.
He can be reached at garywickert@ameritech.net. His column is
available online at www.gmtoday.com/milwaukeetoday/editorials/wickert.asp