WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He
figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast -- a cheering
audience and a few fainting frauleins -- would be a picturesque way to
bolster his foreign policy credentials.
What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is
something you earn. President Reagan earned the right to speak there
because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its
knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation.
When President Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his
"Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was
prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.
Who is Obama representing? And what exactly has he done in his lifetime
to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What
was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern
Europe, the creation of what George Bush 41 -- who presided over the
fall of the Berlin Wall but modestly declined to go there for a victory
lap -- called "a Europe whole and free"?
Does Obama not see the incongruity? It's as if a German pol took a
campaign trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue
for a campaign speech. (The Germans have now gently nudged Obama into
looking at other venues.)
Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself.
There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks
in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a
presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself
and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?
Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative
achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted
"present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as
law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable
piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most
memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.
It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory
speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning
point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back
and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other
wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As economist Irwin
Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the
waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.
Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides
to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had
such power. Obama has no such modesty.
After all, in the words of his own slogan, "we are the ones we've been
waiting for," which, translating the royal "we," means: "I am the one
we've been waiting for." Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal
with its own Latin inscription affixed to his podium, until general
ridicule -- it was pointed out that he was not yet president -- induced
him to take it down
He lectures us that instead of worrying about immigrants learning
English, "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish" -- a
language Obama does not speak. He further admonishes us on how
"embarrassing" it is that Europeans are multilingual but "we go over to
Europe, and all we can say is, 'merci beaucoup.'" Obama speaks no
French.
His fluent English does, however, feature many such admonitions,
instructions and improvements. His wife assures us that President Obama
will be a stern taskmaster: "Barack Obama will require you to work. He
is going to demand that you shed your cynicism ... that you come out of
your isolation. ... Barack will never allow you to go back to your
lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."
For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?
We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives.
Lord of the seas. And more. As he said on victory night, his rise marks
the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall -- I'm no
expert on this -- Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama
operates on a larger canvas.
