Merci beaucoup, Barack

BARACK OBAMA was engaged in one of his favorite pastimes: lecturing Americans on their inadequacies. He said, “Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English-they’ll learn English-you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.” He went on, “It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here. They all speak English-they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe. And all we can say is, ‘Merci beaucoup.'”

It’s embarrassing, says Senator Obama. There is a certain type of American who is always embarrassed, especially in front of Europeans. We’ve all seen them. “Oh, we’re so fat, we’re so loud, we’re so unsophisticated. We use ketchup, we don’t know what to do with a bidet, we have the death penalty!” And “we don’t learn foreign languages!” Most of these Americans are young and callow, and grow out of these attitudes. But many do not-and Mr. and Mrs. Obama seem like unreformed college students, in so many ways.

BARACK OBAMA was engaged in one of his favorite pastimes: lecturing Americans on their inadequacies. He said, “Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English-they’ll learn English-you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.” He went on, “It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here. They all speak English-they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe. And all we can say is, ‘Merci beaucoup.'”

It’s embarrassing, says Senator Obama. There is a certain type of American who is always embarrassed, especially in front of Europeans. We’ve all seen them. “Oh, we’re so fat, we’re so loud, we’re so unsophisticated. We use ketchup, we don’t know what to do with a bidet, we have the death penalty!” And “we don’t learn foreign languages!” Most of these Americans are young and callow, and grow out of these attitudes. But many do not-and Mr. and Mrs. Obama seem like unreformed college students, in so many ways.