OK, President Obama, if you and your defenders insist on denying that you've repeatedly apologized for America, then let's quit mincing words and acknowledge you've done worse than apologize. That works for me.
Maybe it is technically inaccurate to attribute the word apology to you, because you would have to identify with America more before you could apologize on its behalf. Besides, I suppose we should not be surprised in this Clinton-inspired age of word meaninglessness -- an age in which the simple word "is" no longer feels comfortable in its own skin -- that you would deny you have apologized because you didn't use the precise word "apology" in any of your shameful outings.
You didn't say you were sorry, either, come to think of it. But what you did do is harshly criticize America, not just to Americans on our soil but to other nations and their leaders on their soil. From the time you became a liberal activist, you've exhibited a grudge against America as originally founded, and since becoming president, you've made clear on numerous occasions that you still harbor that sentiment.
Indeed, it seems rather obvious based on your statements and policies that your principal motivation for running for president was to "fundamentally transform America" -- your words. Perhaps you could remake it into something you could be proud of and truly love.
You showed genuine contempt for America's conduct before you ascended to the presidency and hastened to add that you had nothing to do with it and would change it. In other words, on our behalf -- your fellow Americans -- you've presumptuously expressed contrition and promised repentance under any reasonable construction of language.
From your condemnation of our enhanced interrogation techniques, which you scornfully call "torture" and which gave us the essential intelligence that led to our elimination of Osama bin Laden, to your denunciation of America's attack on Iraq to your promise to close Gitmo, you have done more than distance yourself from your predecessors on policy. You've rendered a guilty verdict against America and painted it as the international outlaw and bully and vowed to turn things around by adopting an entirely new approach to the war on terror. And you've fulfilled that promise, which goes a long way toward explaining how the Fort Hood shooter was able to succeed in his mass murder and we lost four American lives in Benghazi, Libya.
Seeing as you reject the term "apology" to describe your overtures, perhaps you could help us better characterize them. May I suggest "slam, dis, knock, reproach, blame, criticize, condemn, ridicule or denounce"? Let's review:
You scoffed at the idea of American exceptionalism. You want to increase our deference to international bodies that obviously don't have our best interests at heart, and many of whose members reject our values. You have strongly criticized America's record on civil and human rights to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
You said at the G-20 meeting in London that you believed your election would lead to a restoration of America's positive image in the world, thereby implying it had a richly deserved negative image. You said America needs to account for "inadequacies" in its "regulatory system," and you accepted blame and responsibility for the economic crisis having begun in the United States -- "even if" you weren't "president at the time."
You told the Al-Arabiya television network that America "dictates" without knowing "all the factors involved."
At the Summit of the Americas, you sat through Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's 50-minute harangue against the United States without registering a word of protest and then thanked him for not blaming you "for things that happened when" you were "3 months old." You told the French that America failed to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world and that we've been "arrogant," "dismissive" and "derisive."
In Trinidad, you said we'd been "disengaged" and "dictatorial." In Prague, you said America has a moral responsibility to act on arms control because we are the only nation to have used a nuclear weapon. You tried to visit Japan to personally apologize for our bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and when the Japanese rejected your offer as "a non-starter," you sent Ambassador John Roos to do the job the following year.
You apologized to the Communist Chinese for Arizona's immigration law, a law that Mexican President Felipe Calderon condemned in the Rose Garden while you remained silent. In Mumbai, you told Indians that Americans think of India as but a land of call centers that cost Americans jobs.
You told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that Mexicans were here "long before America was even an idea," apparently unaware that Mexico declared its independence in 1810.
But do you ever talk about America's benevolence and philanthropy in the world? Do you ever praise America for liberating other nations and preventing the enslavement of the Western world by communism?
Love and praise for America don't roll off your lips. Censure and disparagement do. If "apology" doesn't fit, please tell us what does.
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