by Rod D. Martin
February 20, 2008

Last night, sensing that Americans were pretty annoyed (and Republicans were smelling blood in the water), Barack Obama defended his wife’s anti-American comments from earlier in the day.

Barack Obama, interviewed on WOAI radio in San Antonio, Texas, expressed frustration that his wife’s comments became political fodder. “Statements like this are made and people try to take it out of context and make a great big deal out of it, and that isn’t at all what she meant,” Obama said. “What she meant was, this is the first time that she’s been proud of the politics of America,” he said. “Because she’s pretty cynical about the political process, and with good reason, and she’s not alone. But she has seen large numbers of people get involved in the process, and she’s encouraged.”

Okay, fair enough. Except that that’s not at all what she said:

“Let me tell you, for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change.”

What she said was that she’s never been proud of America in her adult life. And that the only way she could possibly be proud of America is if it changes into something it hasn’t previously been.

And honestly, her husband’s “defense” isn’t much better. The amazing transformation of American politics in the Obamas’ lifetimes should be a tremendous source of pride for all of us, whether we’re talking about the Civil Rights Movement or the equality of women or the entrance of first Evangelicals and now the very young into the process or a dozen other things. In fact, the mere existence of our freest-in-the-world political system — particularly when compared to the dictatorships which dominated most of the world throughout the Obamas’ adult lives — should be and should have been a tremendous source of pride, for them and for all the rest of us.

But it wasn’t, at least not to Michelle Obama.

I hate to belabor this point, but I’m just grossed out. This is the sort of self-centered, self-absorbed hippie-liberal thinking that characterizes so much of the generation of which the Obamas are very much a part, and which dominates the thinking of their Party. But it’s also a sickness, a twisted worldview that forever sees America as inferior if not outright evil, and exalts oppressive systems around the world as role models for us. The left can never find a kind thing to say about the birthplace and frequent sole defender of liberty, but from decade to decade they are enraptured with “Uncle Joe” Stalin, “Uncle Ho” Chi Mihn, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Che Gueverra, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez. Every thug of history represents “progress”, every defender of liberty “reaction”.

These people make me sick.