I never bought into the notion that the Obamas were these highly intellectual people or that they would usher in a new kind of bipartisanship or restore American credibility (which I also didn’t think needed restoration). But on the intellectual front, one thing I did take note of was Michelle Obama’s problems with America. She spoke of it as a mean country. She said it wasn’t until 2008 that she was proud of it. And now we have audio from 2008 that just surfaced where she states, “When we took our trip to Africa and visited [Barack’s] home country in Kenya, we took a public HIV test.”
There could be a lot of meanings to that, but you know when Bill Clinton was found having an affair in the White House, one of the myriad questions was, with all the questions already surrounding his ethical behavior, why would he do that too? With all the questions surrounding the Obamas, why would she say this, too? And notice how easily it trips off her tongue. I don’t know that she or he — especially in light of Pastor Jeremiah Wright’s sermons — really thinks of this country first, or as exceptional. I really don’t. I think they think of it as part of a community of nations, no greater than any other. When you hear Obama talk of American exceptionalism and say it’s no different than how the British or Greeks think of their country, you truly get that sense. And that’s deeply regrettable.
(Here’s the audio of a conversation about this from my radio show this morning I had with a caller and Allen West, who is running for Congress in Georgia.)
— Bill Bennett is the host of Morning in America, the Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute, and the author of A Century Turns: New Hopes, New Fears.