I love this item from Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler. Romney says that Obama is going around the world apologizing for America. The headline: “Romney’s claim that Obama is an apologist for U.S. is based on distortions.”
Indeed!
An apologist is someone who zealously defends something, not someone who apologizes for its failures. An “apologist for America” is what the president largely should be, and it is most certainly not what Romney is calling him. At first I thought Kessler might be a victim of his headline writer. Happens all the time. But no. From the piece:
Romney likes to say that President Obama apologized overseas for the United States. He even titled his campaign book “No Apology.”
Even more, Romney suggests, Obama does not believe in American strength and greatness. The assertion feeds into a subterranean narrative that Obama, with his exotic, mixed-race background, is not really American in the first place.
The claim that Obama is an apologist for the nation began to take shape shortly after he became president. It had been bubbling in the conservative blogs before Karl Rove, who was George W. Bush’s political adviser, had an article titled “The President’s Apology Tour” published in the Wall Street Journal on April 23, 2009, just three months after Obama took the oath of office.
Update: Woops sorry. Added link above.
I'd love to ask Glenn Kessler to just cite one passage in one Obama speech that expresses an unabashed confidence in America, as a land of opportunity that has in the main advanced freedom, liberty and general decency. One phrase that could have come straight out of the mouth of Reagan staring down the Soviets or FDR staring down the Nazis and the Japanese. That's not qualified by a reminder that we're not perfect (no one over 6 thinks that anyway, which tells you something about how the president views us), and doesn't make equivalence between, you know, stoning rape victims and unequal pay for secretaries or something.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHeck, let's get one of the leftist regulars to do so. Should be interesting to see what they come up with, and instructive as to their own worldviews to boot.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGird your loins! With a challenge like that the trolls and faux conservatives will be all over.
To all: Please, don't feed them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, I know at least one who's likely to quote something Jay Carney said.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe difference between "apologizer" and "apologist" is something you should learn by, at the latest, the second semester of college. Unfortunately, intellectual development for most liberals stops at the conclusion of semester one.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDoes Glenn Kessler know how to spell potato?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI love how Kessler slips out-of-nowhere implied racism into the piece, and manages to name-drop Karl Rove and George Bush. Gotta hit all those Republicans-are-evil talking points.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Even more, Romney suggests, Obama does not believe in American strength and greatness. The assertion feeds into a subterranean narrative that Obama, with his exotic, mixed-race background, is not really American in the first place."
These people try really hard to get it wrong. Its not because his father was Kenyan but because he chooses to associate himself with the radical hate-America-first Left. Duh!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIgnoring for a moment the incorrect application of the word "apologist", the import of the entire piece is just plainly fallacious.
I don't know how anyone could read the transcripts of Obama prepared remarks during those foreign trips and not reach (to my mind) a fairly simple conclusion: Obama was indeed apologizing for America's behavior. And, it was not an apology that was limited to just the previous administration (which by itself is really unprecedented in America's foreign policy history), but he went out of his way to criticize American 'behavior over the last half-century.
It's almost as if Obama is incapable of saying to a foreign country that behaves badly: Yes,you're behaving badly, but hey, we've behaved badly too.
You could make the argument that Obama is the first president who supports a co-dependent foreign policy; It's not you Iran, it's us. When placed in juxtaposition to his domestic policy rhetoric, it makes for a remarkably stark contrast. Does anyone else remember the "America is lazy" remarks? In that instance, when speaking to the American public, Obama, when speaking about America's financial woes is saying: It's not me, it's you.
It's bizarre.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse[The Couch is surely asking: "So what, it's Sunday and now you think you're Bill Safire?"]
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYeah, great post Mr. Goldberg.
Stunning to see how misguided it all has become.
One can say the same with those coming from Our own side, who seemingly cannot distinguish between a Federal Mandate (which Newt still entertains as recently on Beck's show) vs. the State Level Mandate in which Romney provided in MASS.
Wasn't even embarrassing to see Mrs. Bachmann and Mr. Perry trying again to blur this difference? Perry looked utterly foolish again, having been reminded as he tried the old lie about the Romney book, he offered his own State Mandate with a Vaccination in Texas.
But then here is a real scratcher - how did the once fine, sound, serious Conservative movement loose the ability to distinguish between a Private Sector product in Romney, vs. the Public Sector product in Gingrich?
On that note, how many so-called conservative pundits have actually tried to suggest Newt Gingrich, the Iconic Beltway Insider is the "outsider"?
It is as if everyone has lost their minds, as we eagerly seem willing to court another disaster in the likes of Gingrich yet again in 2012. It is as if the Beltway Insider failure of 2008 was a lesson missed by so many.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"One can say the same with those coming from Our own side, who seemingly cannot distinguish between a Federal Mandate (which Newt still entertains as recently on Beck's show) vs. the State Level Mandate in which Romney provided in MASS."
Stop it. Romney touted this as the way for the country. he also used federal resources to offset problems.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt WAS a great post - an apologist for Obama doing an amateurish job denying that Obama's an apologist for America, but that's not what he means in the first place...funny.
But how does that lead to your Mitt commercial, Old Fan? Quit crowing, your guy looked like a goofball last night with his $10,000 talk. Why not $10? Why not 10 mil? And tell him to quit giggling when people go after him - that got old in the first debate.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI could not agree more. In fact, I woke up and I am totally disgusted with the Republican Party, that I am afraid I am going to be one of those who assists Obama in his next victory if the Republican Party selects Newt as the Candidate. He epitomizes everything that is wrong with Washington, and I use to think that the Republican Party stood for moral character and values. I will vote Libertarian before I vote for Newt, and I know that I am not a lone here.
Finally, the debate big moment for MSM and now, our Republican friends who hate the idea of a rich white Mormon, are all commenting on the Romney bet. Really? To me, the biggest moment came when Ron Paul leveled the Lobbyist charge on Newt, and then again, Newt tells everyone he is not a lobbyist, but some one who offers "strategic advice" for a lot of money from his office on K street. While it may be easy.."to fool some of the people some of the time, you cannot fool all the people all of the time." Of course, Newt should know this quote since it is from Abraham Lincoln, and Newt after all is a historian, right?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFirst, there is a difference between a state and a national mandate on a Constitutional level, but not on a conservative economics and state-power level. They're both inappropriate meddling by the government in its citizens' personal lives.
As far as a difference between private products and "public" ones? To you, it makes a difference where the product is produced when the government orders you to buy it? Sorry, but as a conservative principle, that doesn't fly. A mandate to buy a product is still a tyrannical overreach by the government when it isn't related to the exercise of some privilege. (And, no, I don't think merely being a citizen of a state or this country is a "privilege".)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKessler says:
"In a lengthy article on the Fact Checker blog, we tracked down every statement Obama uttered that partisans claim was an apology, and concluded that each one had been misquoted or taken out of context."
Classic! Kessler says there was no apology. Obama was just trying to distance himself from the previous administration. Like with how Gitmo would be closed (how's that going?), a promise that was apparently taken out of context.
Kessler's "fact checking" is in one of Hemingway's categories: Label something a "narrative" then argue that the narrative's untrue. Except that Obama really did say all those things. And THAT is Kessler's problem; not that he doesn't know what an "apologist" is.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThose on the left love to tell us how progressives are smarter than conservatives. Yet hear we have the fact checker for the Washington Post not only not knowing the definition of the word "apologist", he used it 180 degrees opposite of its actual meaning. As a writer, I'd be embarrassed to make that kind of mistake.
What does it tell us when the fact checkers and editors of the Washington Post don't know the proper usage of words? I suppose that if you can graduate with a Masters' Degree in English Literature without ever having to read Shakespeare, you can probably get a journalism degree without ever learning what words mean.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMinistry of Truth strikes again.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy should the pres be an apologist? I'd rather have a pres who states honestly and completely that we have huge problems; and then uses all of his power, including executive orders and calling out the Army, to solve those problems. If he has to jail Congress and all Federal "judges", so much the better. Most of our problems are explicitly caused by those two monstrosities.
The last thing we need is Misteromney's Neighborhood! In Misteromney's Neighborhood, everything is Exceptional and we have the Most Perfect Educational System In The World and the Best Judicial System In The World and the Best Medical Care In The World.
In reality we're not #1. We're more like #33. We need help.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Fact check" is such a juvenile term. It has the over eager student feel to it. That makes sense given its popularity with the smug little over achievers on the left. You just hear the nasally little bleeps chirping, 'fact check, fact check" at their TV's during debates.
But, what are you gonna do? Self flattery is one of the selling points of the liberal cult. Membership makes you special.
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