Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Too busy for liberty: Behind O's Berlin Wall snub
NY Post ^ | November 2, 2009 | Rich Lowry

Posted on 11/03/2009 3:03:31 AM PST by Scanian

In his first year in office, Bar ack Obama has visited more foreign countries than any other president. He has touched ground in 16 countries, easily outpacing Bill Clinton (three) and George W. Bush (11). It's an itinerary befitting a "citizen of the world."

But there's one stop Obama won't make: He has begged off going to Berlin next week to attend ceremonies commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. His schedule is reportedly too crowded.

John F. Kennedy famously told Berliners, "Ich bin ein Berliner." On the 20th anniversary of the last century's most stirring triumph of freedom, Obama is telling them, "Ich bin beschäftigt" -- i.e., "I'm busy."

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Germany; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: coldwar; communism; merkel; obama; sovietunion; travel

1 posted on 11/03/2009 3:03:32 AM PST by Scanian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Scanian

“Ich bin bei der Trauer.”

(I am in mourning).


2 posted on 11/03/2009 3:09:40 AM PST by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Scanian

I hope Angela Merkel had the good sense to also invite Bush 41, who was President when the wall game down. I would rather have Bush giving the American speech than Obama anyhow (given that Ronald Reagan is not available).


3 posted on 11/03/2009 3:18:05 AM PST by sphinx
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Scanian

Like my Mom used to say, pay no attention to what is said, but watch very carefully what is done. Nothing this man has done since taking office leads me to believe he has anything in mind other than the destruction of the American way of life.

I have no doubt we will survive his presidency, and the Democrat Congress, but we are getting a valuable lesson in why we did all those things for all those years that the last couple of generations have abandoned after deciding they were repressive and really not necessary.


4 posted on 11/03/2009 3:18:50 AM PST by jwparkerjr (God Bless America, and wake us up while you're about it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Scanian
It is OK, David Hasselhoff is going to replace him.
5 posted on 11/03/2009 3:20:56 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: jwparkerjr
Why would a Marxist president celebrate the liberation of millions of people from Marxism?


6 posted on 11/03/2009 3:22:29 AM PST by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Scanian

Obama: “Been there, done that. Plus Michelle tells me she doesn’t need to shop and sightsee in separate planes right now - she’s got Pilates and I’ve got basketball.”


7 posted on 11/03/2009 3:51:09 AM PST by GnuHere
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sphinx


Back row: Angela Merkel (Federal Chancellor), Eva and Horst Koehler (Federal President), Maike Kohl-Richter, Bernhard Vogel. Front row: Gorbatchev, Bush 41 and Helmut Kohl.



Gorbatchev, Merkel, George Bush with wife Barbara



The Bushes and the Chancellor
8 posted on 11/03/2009 4:04:49 AM PST by wolf78 (Inflation is a form of taxation, too. Cranky Libertarian - equal opportunity offender.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Scanian

I don’t think Obama can bring himself to say; “Thank you Mr Gorbachev for tearing down the wall.”


9 posted on 11/03/2009 4:13:57 AM PST by Bringbackthedraft (No 3rd Parties, the real winner will be the loser. A 3 party election needs a run off.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Scanian
Odinga is snubbing the Ceremony because he is a communist sympathizer by nature.

Does anyone honestly think that pig prefers that a society have the liberty to think and act courtesy of its free individuals?

I hardly think so.

10 posted on 11/03/2009 4:16:30 AM PST by Prole (Please pray for the families of Chris and Channon. May God always watch over them.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Prole
o'buma would have to say Ich bin ein Kommunist! ! !
11 posted on 11/03/2009 4:20:30 AM PST by Huebolt (Democrat = (national socialist) = NAZI)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: DuncanWaring

Grammatically, Kennedy was incorrect, but thematically he was right on.

Dear Reader would be grammatically correct saying “Ich bin ein berliner” - he really IS a jelly donut!


12 posted on 11/03/2009 4:27:06 AM PST by MortMan (Stubbing one's toes is a valid (if painful) way of locating furniture in the dark.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Scanian

Obama IS a jelly donut.

Soft and fluffy on the outside and red to the core.


13 posted on 11/03/2009 4:29:22 AM PST by Fresh Wind ("Prosperity is just around the corner." Herbert Hoover, 1932)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Scanian

To Obama, the fall of communism was a terrible thing.

And he’s doing all he can to “correct” that fall.


14 posted on 11/03/2009 4:36:40 AM PST by Travis McGee (---www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com---)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sphinx

Papa Bush is there. He gave a wonderful interview with Greta last night.

I was so happy to see him looking so well, and so well spoken.

Not a teleprompter in sight!

Bless you GHWBush.


15 posted on 11/03/2009 4:39:37 AM PST by Carley (OBAMA IS A MALEVOLENT FORCE IN THE WORLD)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Carley
I saw the interview with Greta, too. She is a very good interviewer. It didn't look like President Bush had aged a day. And he was so humble when Greta pointed out he didn't take any credit for anything. He generously gave credit to Gorbachev, Kohl and finally to the many people in the U.S. that made it possible to re-unite Germany. I was thinking the whole time how Narcissist Obozo would comport himself in such an interview in 20 years...me, me, me, me. Look at me! Look what I did!!
16 posted on 11/03/2009 5:04:48 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: nathanbedford
Years ago, before the days of being able to directly measure teeny tiny amounts of something in the blood, they used a process called complement fixation. It was not super effective but it was the best they had and in its own way it was a really amazing invention/discovery. I won't bore you with the details other than to say it was a multi-step process and was quite involved.

I see attempts to prove that Obama is a Marxist, or worse, are very much like the complement fixation process. We have all sorts of indirect evidence that he is, and has surrounded himself with those are even worse, but there really is no direct test that would force his more rabid supporters to see him for what he is.

17 posted on 11/03/2009 5:15:33 AM PST by jwparkerjr (God Bless America, and wake us up while you're about it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: ProtectOurFreedom

I am so glad I got to watch that interview.

The man served this country well for his entire life.

And I love his sons too. All of them.

Class and dignity in the face of adversity is bred from the outset.


18 posted on 11/03/2009 5:16:25 AM PST by Carley (OBAMA IS A MALEVOLENT FORCE IN THE WORLD)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: DuncanWaring

Obama shows us yet again his disdain for freedom. In a perverse way, it does make sense: the event would be a waste of time — it’s not about him.


19 posted on 11/03/2009 5:21:07 AM PST by FourPeas (Why does Professor Presbury's wolfhound, Roy, endeavour to bite him?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: jwparkerjr
but there really is no direct test that would force his more rabid supporters to see him for what he is.

You ask a fascinating question and one which prompts a couple of lines of thinking. Preliminarily, I would observe that I am far more interested in seeing that the George Stephanopoulos's of the world come to see Obama's Marxism for what it is because if they can acknowledge even only the possibility, the floodgates will open.

First, the obvious response is that the media and the rest of world did not look at Barack Obama during the election or even now as he governs in the same way that they would any white politician. The reality is that Obama is walled off from scrutiny and criticism by virtue of his race. Can you imagine George Stephanopoulos violating political correctness codes when he does not find himself sympathy with objections to Marxism overall? Stephanopoulos does not fear the socialization of America so he does not believe that it is imminent. He much prefers to divert his gaze to matters of race.

Indeed, within the last days a video has emerged of Rev. Wright who extols Marxism and provides a rationalizations by which we should cast aside the Constitution for the advancement of Marxism. Revealingly, in the early part of the speech he asks rhetorically, how much will a black man be "tolerated" in advancing Leftist positions? Of course Rev. Wright is playing the race card and in doing so has turned reality on its head. Barack Obama is tolerated more not less in advancing Marxism because of his race.

Second, there is a tendency to lose the forest for the trees. Most Americans and especially pundits like George Stephanopoulos studiously avoid assessing the cumulative nature of the evidence that Obama is a Marxist as he advances Socialist proposal after Socialist proposal because they simply decline to see the whole picture. As I posted some time ago, one of the most effective aspects to Glenn Beck is that he, almost alone, presents in his polemics a coherent picture in which he connects the dots-as well as individual Marxists-and leaves one straining at a camel to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion that Obama, by his policies and his associations, is a Marxist. This the establishment media steadfastly decline to do.

Like the man who came home unexpectedly from a business trip and entered the bedroom to find his wife naked in bed and discovered a man with an erection in his closet and was thereupon asked by his wife, "who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" The people are going to the polls today and I think they are going to tell George Stephanopoulos that they are believing their own eyes and not him.


20 posted on 11/03/2009 7:28:53 AM PST by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: nathanbedford
Well said, very well said!

I think the situation is very much like the Golda Mier said of the Palestinian efforts to destroy Israel, “Until they love their children more than they hate Israel” there will be no peace. Until the MSM/Lefties love America more than they hate George Bush and The Right, there will be no peace.

I never cease to be amazed at how they spew the most vile things I can imagine, day after day, time after time, and then take to the microphones and cameras to decry the “hate-filled” Right. They are absolutely eat up with the dumb ass and their BDS.

21 posted on 11/03/2009 9:36:54 AM PST by jwparkerjr (God Bless America, and wake us up while you're about it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: jwparkerjr
You ask, in effect, why do leftists behave the way they do? You rightly cite the suicidal belligerence of the Palestinians and the mindless hostility of American liberals. We are witnessing a cult or tribal phenomenon.

I have been preoccupied for some time with the power that draw well-intentioned people into liberalism and I've concluded that it is the power of the cult. Consider how very difficult it is to pry a teenager loose from the clutches of a cult. It requires professionals and an intervention of the most intense level. My first experience with this phenomenon came from exposure in the 1970s to people who had gone through EST. They exhibited many of the characteristics which mark the present day liberal. A smugness, an ill disguised feeling of superiority derived from a belief that they alone are possessed of special insights and truth. A belief that the rest of humanity is benighted and unworthy except as candidates for conversion.

These people were so myopic and yet so convinced of the superiority of their Weltanshaaung that they were obnoxious. We called them, "est-holes."

The est experience consisted of "seminar training" in which the individual was stripped clean of his ego which was replaced by a new belief system imposed on the crushed individual by the est facilitator. This is typical of a cult. It is even typical of the Marine Corps but that is in pursuit of a worthy goal.

This phenomenon is so strong in its appeal because of the "power of surrender."

I believe that the principal distinction between conservatives and statists is that the latter are God players and as such they are in unremitting rebellion against God. Conservatives on the other hand tend to be believers in the Christian faith where we come to our salvation as an individual experience. One would think that a God player would be an individualist but for some reason which I do not understand they tend to be collectivists. In effect, they find their salvation in the group. Think of the Bloods and Crips. The act of surrender of the ego to the group yields a wonderful feeling of integration and well-being. The individual can renew that feeling by re-immersing himself into the group. That which threatens the group threatens him. Consider the American Indians such as the Iroquois who were quite loving toward their children and considerate of each other and yet were unbelievably brutal and indifferent to the agony of those prisoners they tortured. They were outside the tribe, they were the "other."

I believe this accounts for the scatological language and the sheer nastiness of the posts one finds in the liberal blogs. There is no restraint so long as one stays within the cult. One of the primary taboos of this cult has to do with race. Liberals consider conservatives to be racists and hence beyond the pale. There is no opprobrium so debased that it cannot be applied to these people.

As new converts get drawn to the flame, they sense the release to be obtained from surrendering to such a group.

Last April there was a report that Obama recommended Americans embark on an environmental "mission." I wrote the following post as an illustration of the phenomenon I am trying to articulate:

Obama: Americans Want to Be on an Environmental ‘Mission’

April 23, 2009

I think Obama actually believes that the country once summoned will experience a spiritual release through devotion to the environment. This is a little understood phenomenon which motivates liberals in very many of their causes. When the individual surrenders to something other than himself- typically for the liberal that means the "collective," but it can be to virtually anything- he is rewarded with an emotional release, a feeling of integration. This phenomenon has been well-recognized by psychologists.

Recall Hillary Clinton's summons in 1969 for a more "ecstatic" experience. She was trying to articulate the same phenomenon. Think of the calls by liberals in the wake of 9/11 for George Bush to summon the country to a "sacrifice." Instinctively the liberals grope for this emotional experience. It matters not that the summons would have been fatuous. What did they want George Bush to summon them to? To plant victory gardens? to collect old tires? To ration gas? The point, of course, is that the war on terrorism was waged against us to cause us to change our lifestyle. No matter, logic has nothing to do with the emotional satisfaction.

I think we should consider the entire Obama administration to be a mystical call to the nation to join with them in this kind of mystical release that he found as an agitator and group leader for Saul Alinsky.

Yes, we are now being governed as though we were in a giant EST meeting and may God have mercy on all of us.


22 posted on 11/03/2009 12:26:22 PM PST by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: MortMan

Yes, we who know German, know exactly what JFK said, it’s part of history now. The Germans on both sides of Berlin knew what he meant. (Many thought it was cute, and they understood)


23 posted on 11/03/2009 2:05:50 PM PST by tillacum (nobma & skerry defending this country is like a jello cube holding up the Empire State Building)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson