Ivy League educated president fancies himself a “student of history”, but he gets schooled by a real professor of history in Victor Davis Hanson.
In his speech last week in Cairo, President Obama proclaimed he was a “student of history.” But despite Barack Obama’s image as an Ivy-League-educated intellectual, he lacks historical competency, both in areas of facts and interpretation…
In the recent Cairo speech, Obama’s historical allusions were even more suspect. Almost every one of his references was either misleading or incomplete. He suggested that today’s Middle East tension was fed by the legacy of European colonialism and the Cold War that had reduced nations to proxies.
But the great colonizers of the Middle East were the Ottoman Muslims, who for centuries ruled with an iron fist. The 20th-century movements of Baathism, Pan-Arabism and Nasserism — largely homegrown totalitarian ideologies — did far more damage over the last half-century to the Middle East than the legacy of European colonialism.
Obama also claimed that “Islam … carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment.” While medieval Islamic culture was impressive and ensured the survival of a few classical texts — often through the agency of Arabic-speaking Christians — it had little to do with the European rediscovery of classical Greek and Latin values. Europeans, Chinese and Hindus, not Muslims, invented most of the breakthroughs Obama credited to Islamic innovation…
Obama also insisted that “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition.” Yet the Spanish Inquisition began in 1478; by then Cordoba had long been re-conquered by Spanish Christians, and was governed as a staunchly Christian city.
In reference to Iraq, President Obama promised that “no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.” Is he unaware of how the United States imposed democracies after World War II?
After the defeat of German Nazism, Italian fascism and Japanese militarism, Americans — by force — insisted that these nations adopt democratic governments, for their own sakes and the world’s. Indeed, it is hard to think of too many democratic governments that did not emerge from violence — including our own.
Surely Obama took History, but a grasp of facts is not really the issue here. The devil is in his interpretation. Where did he get such a twisted take on the history of the Middle East and Europe?
Obama obviously used a speech writer, who used numerous sources to craft his address clearly intended to curry favor with his persumed audience – the Arab street. And they got their favorite version of events. So where did Obama get this particular take?
There are two possible places. One is from documented Israel hater Samantha Power who is on Obama’s National Security Council. She was an advisor early in his campaign before being bounced for insulting Hillary Clinton. She likely has maintained a professional realtionship with Obama’s speechwriters.
The other is Jeremiah Wright. While Wright probably doesnt have the acumen that does a Power on history, one only need imagine what listening to his rants for 20 years might have done to Obama’s judgement. Spending a developmental life of indulgement and adulation in a world of leftism deprived the young man of opportunity to really experience debate.
Or then again maybe he did. His debate partners were straw men.
H/T: Gateway Pundit
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This post was written by bobsikes on June 11, 2009
