Cheat Seeking Missiles

Posted by: Laer at 12:38 pm

arack Obama’s planned Berlin speech is the result of egomaniacal overreach by the candidate and his staff. Obama, the new Kennedy. Obama, the new Reagan. Obama, the new Narcissus.

But Kennedy and Reagan spoke in a Berlin that was the symbolic core of the Cold War; it was a platform for bravely confronting a freedom-crushing Soviet empire with the rousing rhetoric of freedom. What is Berlin symbolic of today? Hedonism? Eurocentrism? Anyone? Anyone?

That’s why I like the suggestion made by Tony Campbell at The Moderate Voice:

My suggestion to Obama: forget Berlin, go to Mecca. If you really want to be seen in a Kennedy / Reagan light in the diplomatic arena, you should use your popularity and your unique heritage to address the Christian and Muslim worlds.

Campbell seems to see his suggestion merely in a religious light:

However, the issue is much trickier and more dangerous than either Kennedy or Reagan had to face. Instead of disarming conventional and nuclear weapons, Obama has to disarm fear and prejudice on both sides, Christian and Muslim.

That’s an underestimation of the parallel Campbell’s defined; this is about much more than “fear and prejudice.” Radical Islamism is the common threat freedom-loving folk face today, just as the Soviets were in the 1960s and 1980s. Kennedy and Reagan took the rhetorical war against the Soviets to the city that was the chink stopping the Soviet advance, and spat some powerful, intimidating rhetoric in the direction of Moscow.

What part of the Islamic world is liberated and freedom-loving enough to allow a Western leader to cry out the modern-day counterpart of “I am a Berliner?” No place.

Who is brave enough today to go to Mecca and say “Tear down this jihadism?” No one, least of all Obama.

A meaningful, challenging speech in Mecca is what the world needs, but there’s one little problem Campbell overlooked: The religion of peace does not allow non-Muslims to visit Mecca - and Obama, as we all know, is not a Muslim.