PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SPEECH TO THE UN

Ken Berwitz       http://partisan.blogs.hopelesslypartisan.com/

I was going to write about President Obama’s disheartening, dispiriting, jimmy-carteresque speech to the United Nations yesterday.  But the New York Post has an editorial that says pretty much everything I would have, so why re-invent the wheel?

Here it is:

The naïf-in-chief

Last Updated: 1:06 AM, September 24, 2009

Posted: September 24, 2009

Who wrote President Obama’s speech for the start of the UN General As sembly yesterday — Rodney King? You know, the guy whose videotaped run-in with cops sparked the 1992 LA riots, leading King to ask: “Can’t we all just get along?”

Today that question is used derisively, to mock naive “solutions” for social ills. But it essentially sums up Obama’s 38-minute UN plea, as Washington’s former UN envoy John Bolton noted.

Except that Obama is supposed to be the wise leader of the Free World.

What a truly pathetic performance.

Not only because of the president’s stunning cluelessness about the world’s nature. But also because of his repeated insults to America. And his back-stabbing of Washington’s top Mideast ally, Israel.

Obama, yet again, focused on the world’s “distrust” of this nation, thanks to the “belief . . . that America has acted unilaterally, without regard for the interest of others” — presumably, under George W. Bush’s presidency.

Not to fear, though; Obama’s here: He’s closing Gitmo, he said, banning torture, quitting Iraq, scrapping nukes …

What about protecting America?

Obama believes “deeply,” he said, that “the interests of nations and peoples are shared.” (Cue the Kumbaya singers.)

Indeed, he practically begged world leaders to take their “share of responsibility” in responding to global challenges.

Did no one brief him about who’d be at the event? Like lunatic Libyan murderer-in-chief Moammar Khadafy (who ranted for 95 minutes)? And Holocaust-denying, terror-sponsoring, nuke-building, election-stealing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Obama can’t truly believe these guys will do their “share” to make the world safe, however much he pleads.

And what’s up with those gratuitous slams at Jerusalem? “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” Obama hissed. He insisted that “Israel respect the legitimate claims . . . of the Palestinians.”

Memo to POTUS: Israel has always respected legitimate Palestinian claims.

Indeed, it is neither Israeli disrespect nor settlements that stand in the way of peace there — but the Palestinian fantasy (fueled by folks like Ahmadinejad) of wiping the Jewish state off the map.

Obama can wish all he wants for everyone to “just get along.”

But wishing won’t make it happen.

He’s got some serious learning to do.

What a cesspool of moral equivalency, ridiculous tra-la-la perceptions about the rest of the world….and, not incidentally, gratuitous attacks on Israel.

President Obama brings us right back to the naive, puerile mindset that somehow the United Nations is going to provide peace and safety for us all, and the United States overreaches if it operates outside of the UN’s parameters.

Is this ludicrous and dangerous?  Yes, and yes.

But we deserve it.  We elected this horror show, and a huge Democratic majority in congress to back him up.

Come 2010, we’ll see if enough of us realize what a mistake this was to do something about it.

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UPDATE:  Here is additional commentary by Paul Mirengoff of www.powerlineblog.com.  Like the Post, Paul hits the nail on the head:

Conservative commentary on President Obama’s U.N. speech has correctly taken note of the extent to which Obama once again has apologized for America. What struck me as new, though, was extent to which he begged his audience to award the U.S. brownie points for his good acts. The one form of supplication follows from the other. Obama isn’t just saying that the U.S. has been a bad boy in the past; he’s also saying that we’re a good boy now:

We know the future will be forged by deeds and not simply words. Speeches alone will not solve our problems — it will take persistent action. For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months.

Obama then listed a series of decisions that he hoped might placate the assembled thugs, dictators, and hypcrites — a crowd from which he feels compelled to seek approval on behalf of the United States. Obama noted that he has banned torture, closed Gitmo, moved to end the war in Iraq, moved towards disarmament, attempted to advance the ball on creating a Palestinian state, “re-engaged the United Nations, paid our bills, joined the Human Rights Council.”

So here was the president of the United States doing everything but getting down on his hands and knees before the representatives of every wretched regime in the world to plead that the U.S. has turned over a new leaf and, in effect, become harmless.

Does Obama believe that anything positive will come of this stomach-turning spectacle. Or does he just like to bask in the glow of applause for the proposition that the U.S. was a pretty rotten place until he assumed control, without worrying about who it is that’s applauding?