Obama: No Pride in Saying "I Am an American"

I've been saying for weeks that folks need to pay attention to Barack Obama's words (see, for example, "Barack Obama and the Power of Words").

In speech after speech, I keep hearing more stridently oppositional language, opposition not just to the war, but to our very traditions.

Maybe it's just me, but listening to his concession speech in Texas last night left me disturbed. Obama made what I would consider statements of anti-Americanism. Particulary, like his wife, Obama says that Americans today cannot take pride in their country. He yearns for the future day - presumable under an Obama administration - when young Americans traveling abroad can again hold up their heads and announce with pride, "I am an American."

Here's the YouTube of Obama's San Antonio speech. His longing for a time when Americans can be proud again is at 10:05 minutes:

Obama is, without a doubt, a powerful speaker. And while he does come off as short on specifics at times, his lofty rhetoric veers occasionally into very precise - even noxious - territory.

I'm a proud American, and I tell my kids and my students that they can be proud of their country.

This is not some peripheral issue that should get lost in all the debates about the precise scope of coverage under Obama's health insurance proposal, or whether he'd enter negotiations with our sworn enemies.

No, it goes beyond specifics to the fundamental qualities of what we want in our president, an American president.

I want a president who's not afraid to say that the United States will act when the international community won't. I want a president who's not afraid to say that Americans don't shrink from their international repsonsibilities, that they won't abandon nations of the world who look to us for vigorous leadership and commitments in trade, security, and humanitarian assitance.

We've seen this language of shame in nation before - regulary with the antiwar mobs, but more recently with Michelle Obama and her statement that she's not proud of her country.

Well, with Obama's San Antonio speech we don't have to guess whether Michelle's sentiments run in the family. The Illinois Senator suggests that Americans today traveling abroad have to drop their heads down low.

I disagree, and that's not the kind of presidential role model I want for America's youth.

See also my earlier post, "Looking for Substance in a Dangerous Left-Winger."