I’ve received some e-mails and tweets objecting to my post below, which highlights the following quote from President Obama:

“Whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out– one way or another–we get pulled into them.”

What immediately struck me about this remark was our commander-in-chief’s apparent ambivalence about America’s vast and ongoing military superiority. Some of his defenders argue the “whether we like it or not” clause was actually referring to the end of his sentence — the bit about getting “pulled into” various skirmishes around the world. That result of our strength, they say, is what may or may not be a good thing in his eyes. Perhaps. It certainly would have been helpful for this great orator to make his point — to borrow a phrase — “absolutely clear.” We’re all guilty of sloppy and imprecise speech on occasion, but the president should have been more conscientious when publicly discussing American power at a large international gathering.

It’s also worth pointing out that nowhere in my post did I state that Obama does not like the fact that we remain a dominant military superpower. I did, however, imply that given the pernicious anti-American associations (Wright, Ayers, Holdren, etc.) he’s embraced in the past, this president may have a significantly less supportive view of American martial muscle than his predecessors. It would also be easier to give Obama the benefit of the doubt here if the early part of his presidency hasn’t been punctuated with one apology for America after another.

Karl Rove chronicled the “Apology Tour” in a Wall Street Journal column, underlining Obama’s negative assessement of American attitudes in a speech to a French audience, and his dismissal of American exceptionalism:

Mr. Obama told the French (the French!) that America “has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive” toward Europe. In Prague, he said America has “a moral responsibility to act” on arms control because only the U.S. had “used a nuclear weapon.” In London, he said that decisions about the world financial system were no longer made by “just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy” — as if that were a bad thing. And in Latin America, he said the U.S. had not “pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors” because we “failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress throughout the Americas.”
…Mr. Obama was asked in Europe if he believes in American exceptionalism. He said he did — in the same way that “the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism.” That’s another way of saying, “No.”

Finally, at the very same summit where Obama uttered the comment that I’ve supposedly taken out of context, he also told the leader of Kazakhstan — a nation plagued by human-rights violations — that, like his country, the United States is still “working on” our democracy. The president is also fresh off signing a treaty with Russia despite significant differences emerging over key interpretations of its contents. His administration’s new nuclear review makes major concessions on America’s nuclear posture without robustly defending our interests.

I do not know precisely what President Obama meant when he made the statement in question — nor do I pretend to. But based on his own past rhetoric, actions, and associations, I think it’s entirely reasonable to draw attention to this remark, and to carefully examine this president’s view of the country he was elected to lead.