RSSMr. Obama Goes To Europe
Gene Lalor | March 30, 2009
Recall those pictures from last July as candidate Barack Obama strode like a mighty colossus across Europe, regaling up to 200,000 screaming fans with his never-defined promises of change and with paid rock bands brought in to entertain the plebians?
Well, some of his plans for change have now been defined and millions here and abroad don’t like the looks of the definitions. The relatively heady days of 2008 have been supplanted with worldwide financial spasms and we are now residents of a world far different from last July.
Those ecstatic hordes of European fans greeted an Elvis-reborn, the political equivalent of a rock star, a potential new kind of American leader who promised a new and different future. They would have gone bonkers for virtually anyone who promised an end to the 8 years of misery many Europeans felt they and the planet had endured under George W. Bush. Those Obamaniacs may turn out again but their gusto may be tempered by doubts that Obama is not all he seemed to be seven months ago.
Last year, Obama wanted to ice his Berlin cake with a speech at the Brandenburg Gate, perhaps to repeat JFK’s memorable words of 45 years earlier, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” or, “I am a jelly donut,” in German slang, but he was denied that overreaching presumption. In a few days, when he speaks at the G-20 confab in London, Obama will be lucky to get a cup of tepid tea and a stale crumpet.
Had President Ronald Reagan–and Pope John Paul II–not succeeded in having Mr. Gorbachev “tear down that wall,” Obama most assuredly would have put in an appearance at the Berlin Wall, 
which for decades divided the free West from the enslaved East Germany. Candidate Obama, absent his teleprompter, might have delivered an inspiring oration and could have incorporated these memorable words: “Messrs. Putin and Medvedev, the world would really like you to consider, umm, y’know, maybe putting a gate in that wall there, ya know, the one behind me. Or, maybe, umm, setting a gate timetable, or something.”
But history denied him that opportunity in 2008 and will in 2009 which is regrettable since his German fans would have lapped it up, just as Hitler’s brownshirts lapped up his inspirational words 70 years ago. As a reminder of when Germans last idolized a rock star, take a listen here to how Der Fuehrer could stoke a crowd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KgJQUXr2Ws.
Now, God forbid, I am not in any way comparing Obama to Hitler. For one thing, Hitler didn’t rely on a teleprompter, for another Obama is not a card-carrying member of the “Master Race” and, for a third, Adolph referred to Negroes as “half apes” in Mein Kampf. That would make Obama a “quarter ape,” in Hitler’s mind. Nevertheless, there are definite similarities in the semi-hysterical enthusiasm of their audiences.
As Mister Obama prepares for a triumphant European reprise, this time as President of the United States and, not incidentally, Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces and reputed, unofficial Leader of the Free World, he may be in for a radically different reception from 2008. His “Euros for Obama Fan Club” may be in full swing but the bloom is off his wilted rose in many European seats of power.
I will leave analysis of Obama’s sudden fall from grace among the grand poobahs of Europe to scholars and future historians, a decline which has been almost as precipitous as his meteoric rise to prominence.
And fall he has, especially as contrasted with the baseless accolades heaped on him after November 4th.
Reuters reports that, “The enthusiasm that greeted Barack Obama’s election last year has begun to fade in some of Europe’s major capitals, replaced by concerns about the new U.S. president’s economic policies and softer stance toward Russia:” http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52S0PK20090329.
Europe is not about to concede that after less than ten weeks it has fallen out of love with President Obama but, like a betrothed bride-to-be who discovers her beloved cheats, Europe is having second thoughts.
German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is in the forefront of various European leaders who essentially have said that British PM Gordon Brown can stuff his, and Obama’s, plans to spend the world’s way back to prosperity: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/G20/article5993184.ece.
Merkel’s Germany still remembers the bad old days of the 1920’s when it took a wheelbarrow full of deutschmarks to buy a loaf of bread and she is not about to lead her nation headlong down Obama’s and Brown’s thorny road of printing paper money 24/7 in hopes of buying their way out of an economic malaise. That strategy can only result in national bankruptcy.
The Times article goes on to report that, “The assault by European Union leaders also represents a defeat for President Barack Obama, who is desperate for other big economies to copy his $800 billion stimulus plan.”
“Que sera sera,” as the song goes, but it’s worthwhile to consider where Europe is coming from in the spring of 2009. Brit PM Brown, a Scotsman and long-term Chancellor of the Exchequer, is obviously coming from an ingrained monetary philosophy which apparently is unrelated to his 10 years as Britain’s money man.
His American counterpart, Mr. Obama, has no such experience, indeed has little experience in anything except community activism and campaigning, yet his views are very much in synch with Mr. Brown’s, namely instituting and propagating an economic policy which only a Bernie Madoff could appreciate. The difference is that Madoff stole as much as he could from unwitting investors; in government circles they are known as taxpayers.
After Obama fails to persuade G-20 members to acknowledge his leadership, he takes off for a Grand Tour of other European capitals where he can attempt to re-assume his Elvis personna but it won’t be quite the same as in 2008. For one thing, the crazies will be out in force, the young and old Communists, socialists, one-worlders, and chaos-loving anarchists.
The president may be happy to get home.
Contributor's website: http://www.genelalor.com/
Content posted by users from other sites is posted for commentary and news purposes under fair use and each author is responsible for their own postings and a particular posting should not be construed as being endorsed by this site or its owner.
Leave a Reply
Loading ...Recommended Reading:
