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Give It A Rest

Only Obama – with his dismissive view of the Cold War as a relic distorting our thinking and his attenuated commitment to America’s exceptional role in the world – would spurn German president Angela Merkel’s invitation to attend. ~Rich Lowry Perhaps Chancellor Merkel is offended by Obama’s non-attendance, but I rather doubt it. The fall […]

Only Obama – with his dismissive view of the Cold War as a relic distorting our thinking and his attenuated commitment to America’s exceptional role in the world – would spurn German president Angela Merkel’s invitation to attend. ~Rich Lowry

Perhaps Chancellor Merkel is offended by Obama’s non-attendance, but I rather doubt it. The fall of the Berlin Wall, like the other popular movements that occurred during 1989 throughout central and eastern Europe, was a great and wonderful moment in the history of Europe and the world. It is also worth mentioning that it was an event created entirely by Germans. Germans in Berlin tore down that wall and elected to rebel against the Soviet domination that it represented. They did so knowing full well that it was only East German and Soviet loss of nerve in quashing such a demonstration that prevented them from being killed or imprisoned. Had Gorbachev responded as Brezhnev had in 1968, the West would have complained loudly, but would have rationally refrained from taking any action that might lead to military conflict. In the end, the communist governments of central and eastern Europe fell because their nations no longer accepted them and their Soviet masters and the men running those governments were no longer willing to perpetuate themselves in power with violence. It might very well be more appropriate that the American President not be there, lest we be treated to yet another self-congratulatory paean to how we Americans won the Cold War, which tends to obscure and marginalize the very central role that the peoples of the communist states of Europe had in toppling that oppressive and degrading system.

It would be typical of an American President to mark the twentieth anniversary of such an occasion by flying in to claim part of the credit on behalf of the U.S. While I doubt that there was actually all that much calculation involved in Obama’s decision to stay away, perhaps he intended to show that he understands that the event was not principally an American triumph and was not really about us. Given his endless talk of the interdependence of all nations, I admit that this is a stretch.

Of course, Obama could go and mark the occasion, but I think this would immediately be treated as an attempt to exploit a German and European celebration to provide yet another platform for yet another speech. If people are tired of hearing from Obama and tired of him inserting himself into so many things, as we hear so often from the GOP, his absence from Berlin this week should be a welcome sign that Obama is learning that he needs to have priorities in how he uses his time. Just a few weeks ago, we were hearing how outrageous it was for Obama to shirk his duties and go to Copenhagen, and now it is supposed to be outrageous that he is not going on yet another foreign trip.

Republicans object to so many irrelevant things that Obama does and they treat absolutely everything as some supreme, unpardonable error that it is impossible to take any of their criticism seriously.

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