When and if Barack Obama takes the oath of office as President of the United States, who most will he owe that high privilege to?
According to Alexandre Adler, one of France’s leading historians, journalists – and according to many – a neocon, that person would be George W. Bush.
Adler writes:
“Those who do me the honor of reading my commentaries from time to time will immediately understand that my counterintuitive mind leads me of course to the rescue of Bush and an assault on Obama. But here there is a caveat: Bush has also prepared the way for Obama.”
Concurring that Americans rightly want “change,” Adler points out that:
“It’s not the smoky haze over Baghdad that has prompted this judgment, but the fetid and stagnant waters of New Orleans, a city that has been abandoned to its fate.”
Adler then takes Hollywood, the American left and President Bush to task:
“The way having been prepared by the insistent yellow propaganda of Stephen Spielberg – so true to the doctrine of ‘zero death’ – and exalted by artsy heebie jeebies worthy of a Clint Eastwood, who extols the bravery of Japanese soldiers in Okinawa and the barbarity of the Marines, unilateral pacifism reigns from Portland, Maine to San Diego. But I cannot exonerate today’s neo-conservatives any more than the current president from central responsibility in this reversal of public opinion.”
Finally issuing his ultimate indictment of President Bush, Adler concludes:
“One of two things is undeniable: either America has been at war against Islamist terrorism since September 11, 2001, or it has not. President Bush chose this moment to anesthetize public opinion and treat his fellow citizens like children. Instead of demanding that everyone make sacrifices that Americans would be prepared to accept came a systemic reduction in taxes. … if Obama now reaches the pinnacle of power, he owes it both to the best of Bush – his anti-racism – and of course to the worst of this nevertheless courageous president – his willingness to preserve American socio-economic selfishness, which ultimately could only lead to the very geo-strategic self-centeredness of the very Hollywood Barack Obama.”
The Chronicle of Alexandre Adler
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
May 23, 2008
France – Le Figaro – Original Article (French)
All of America is rustling over the vanquisher of the Democratic primaries, Senator Barack Obama; All of America is reconciled to burying George W. Bush and his record. Those who do me the honor of reading my commentaries from time to time will immediately understand that my counterintuitive mind leads me of course to the rescue of Bush and an assault on Obama. But here there is a caveat: Bush has also prepared the way for Obama.
The Obama wave has several ramifications. Many Americans, and rightly so, believe that the United States of 2008 needs a real break from the society in which – from the sub-prime crisis to the spectacular deterioration of infrastructure and with that, public policy in general – requires genuine sweeping change. It’s not the smoky haze over Baghdad that has prompted this judgment, but the fetid and stagnant waters of New Orleans, a city that has been abandoned to its fate.
In nominating John McCain, the most left-wing Republican candidate since 1948, conservative primary voters were not mistaken. To this, one could add the biblical parable of, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last [Matthew 20:1-16]. Black American elites have astonished the country with their competence, dynamism and courage.
Many Americans believe that by electing a Black president, they will restore the equity they have claimed so long without doing any harm to the authority of the executive. On this point as well, public opinion is perfectly correct. And I count myself among those who would have liked to have seen Colin Powell in the White House already, and perhaps one day, Condi Rice. But the victory of Obama is also due to an extremely dangerous wave of pacifism, which is more isolationist and more protectionist, the true motto of which – America First – was the slogan of Charles Lindbergh and his friends who, arrayed against Roosevelt, refused to enter the Second World War against Hitler.
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