Bolton on O'Bama's Berlin Speech

The Moustachioed One has an excellent analysis of the messiah's recent speech in Berlin. One excerpt:

First, urging greater U.S.-European cooperation, Obama said, "The burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together." Having earlier proclaimed himself "a fellow citizen of the world" with his German hosts, Obama explained that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Europe proved "that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."

Perhaps Obama needs a remedial course in Cold War history, but the Berlin Wall most certainly did not come down because "the world stood as one." The wall fell because of a decades-long, existential struggle against one of the greatest totalitarian ideologies mankind has ever faced. It was a struggle in which strong and determined U.S. leadership was constantly questioned, both in Europe and by substantial segments of the senator's own Democratic Party. In Germany in the later years of the Cold War, Ostpolitik -- "eastern politics," a policy of rapprochement rather than resistance -- continuously risked a split in the Western alliance and might have allowed communism to survive. The U.S. president who made the final successful assault on communism, Ronald Reagan, was derided by many in Europe as not very bright, too unilateralist and too provocative.

Very true. And I would like to add that during the cold war, many of the left both in the USA and in western europe admired both the ideals and the methods of soviet-style communism. They want the government to control commerce. They want restrictions on freedom of expression. They want to restrict the rights of their political opponents.

Back during the cold war, anyone who criticized communists was derided as being like "McCarthy". The fact that millions of people who directly experienced communism, voted with their feet when given the opportunity, was irrelevant to the left.

The left favored rapprochement with the soviets because they had the same goals as the bolsheviks.