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Obama the Messiah Twists History

Hovering from on high, he finds fault with US: Krauthammer

By Jason Farago, Newser Staff

Posted Jun 12, 2009 8:40 AM CDT

(Newser) – "He's sort of God," a Newsweek writer said of Barack Obama on MSNBC recently, which for Charles Krauthammer is only a mild overstatement of how the president sees himself: "hovering above mere mortals, mere country, to gaze benignly upon the darkling plain beneath him." In his Cairo speech, Obama took his "gospel of understanding" to an extreme, equating brutality in the Muslim world with mild American foibles, writes the Washington Post columnist.

To Krauthammer's ears, Obama even made the rights of women sound equally threatened in the US and Iran—as if "some softball team receiving insufficient Title IX funds" could be equated to beatings, acid attacks, and stonings. The president might think his on-the-one-hand-on-the-other stance shows leadership and balance. In fact, his "self-flagellating apologetics" signal little more than hunger for approval and "a disturbing ambivalence toward his own country."

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (2)]

President Obama's speech aimed to set a new tone in America's often-strained dealings with the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

An Afghan man photographs U.S. President Barack Obama from the TV during a live broadcast of a speech by Obama from Cairo in Khost province south of Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday, June 4, 2009. (AP Photo/Nishanuddin Khan)

Barack Obama speaks at Cairo University, Thursday, June 4, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

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He's showing cheap condescension, an unseemly hunger for applause and a willingness to distort history for political effect. Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership, but moral abdication.
- Charles Krauthammer

Obama's transcultural evenhandedness gives the veneer of professorial sophistication to the most simple-minded observation. These rights and wrongs aren't of equal weight. - Charles Krauthammer

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 62 comments

AmericaPrevails

Jun 16, 2009 6:39 AM CDT

It's almost impossible to find someone who speaks the truth in such a convincing manner. The things that pass for journalism now days.. well done Charles Krauthammer. Warhead- torture? You mean waterboarding? Or almost putting an insect that an inmate at guantanamo was especially fearful of into the same cell as him? Still sounds less violent than cutting off someones head with a dull sword while muttering things to allah, and then putting it on the internet for the family to see doesn't it? Or stoning a woman? Or, better yet, beheading a woman for asking for a divorce? That one was a bit more close to home, in America actually, I'm sure you all heard. The war with the Afgans was provoced. The war in Iraq, was less so provoked, but the threat of WMD falling into extremists hands was to big. Almost all the major intelligence agencies agreed that the Iraqi's has WMD when we invaded. But seeing as you have head al of that before lets start from a new angle.. Were fighting a geurila warfare style war, we need the threat of guantanamo, and the presence in the middle East in order to continue to show a strong, unwavering face or resolution to our enemy.

Doctor-Zaius

Jun 13, 2009 12:58 PM CDT

'"Your" an idiot'...priceless.

Doctor-Zaius

Jun 13, 2009 12:54 PM CDT

Once again Pole-Rider, you have been chewing on your fingernails too often. Bush's disapproval ratings was the highest ever at 72%. So go back to your little pretend statistics website and see if you can scratch up some more tempests in teacups.

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Obama the Messiah Twists History