Obama Hits a Wall! Will Media Highlight MAJOR Obama Gaffe in Berlin Speech?
Posted on July 25, 2008
-By Warner Todd Huston
Obama’s speech today in Berlin, hailed as a “major” address, has at least one major, glaring error that shows that nether Obama nor his handlers and speech writers were thoroughly familiar with the facts. Obama’s main theme was about the “walls” that separate all of us one from another. He claims that many of these “walls” have been taken down and hails that as progress. But in at least one instance he is wrong. In fact more walls have been built where Obama claimed they were taken down.
First the relevant section of Obama’s misconception (my bold for emphasis):
The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.
We know they have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a Union of promise and prosperity. Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans, where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people defeated apartheid.
(Full Obama speech transcript here.)
Obama claims that the walls built to separate Protestant from Catholic have come down in Belfast. Well, in fact, they have not. In reality MORE ARE BEING BUILT all the time.
As a May 5th USA Today story chronicles, “Ten years after peace was declared in Northern Ireland, one might have expected that Belfast’s barriers would be torn down by now. But reality, as usual, is far messier. Not one has been dismantled. Instead they’ve grown in both size and number.”
Ronald Reagan was able to get Mr. Gorbechev to tear down those walls, but it seems Mr. Obama can’t even get it straight if they exist or not!
So, where is the fawning, sycophantic media to lambast Obama’s ignorance here?
I won’t hold my breath.
» Filed Under Elections, Europe, Liberal Media/Bias, News
Trackback URL
Comments
3 Responses to “Obama Hits a Wall! Will Media Highlight MAJOR Obama Gaffe in Berlin Speech?”
Leave a Reply
Keep up the blogging. Eventually the media will have to report on this…
Your objections are off-base for two reasons. First of all, he was referring to walls in both a literal and a metaphorical sense. The Berlin Wall is an obvious literal reference. South Africa and the Balkans were more of a metaphorical reference. In Belfast, his reference could be taken either way. But it is clear that the deadly fighting in Belfast has decreased. So he is completely justified in lumping all of these situations together and to state that the walls have come down. The literal and metaphorical walls might not be 100% gone, but we’ve made good progress.
The second flaw in your article is that you are labeling this as a MAJOR! gaffe. Although I disagree with your assessment that he made a factual mistake, I’ll set that aside for the moment. He was making a point about how we should come together. In support of this point he listed a few success stories. If one of his success stories is incorrect, then he’s made a small error. The appropriate response would be for him to say “oops”. Nothing more.
However, if he had been using Belfast as a central point to his speech (which he wasn’t) and if he had used it as an example of how we should take some sort of drastic action (which he wasn’t), then we should expect him to be clear and flawless regarding Belfast.
You’re entitled to your opinion about Obama. But when you allow your dislike for him to distort your reasoning abilities, then that’s a problem.
Thinker,
It’s not just one gaffe, but the dozens (hundreds?) the obamessiah has made that cause us so much concern about the empty suit. Gee, why should someone trying to be the leader of the free world worry about accuracy?
Sorry, no pass here. If a Conservative or GW would make such a gaffe, it would be ALL OVER the Leftmedia for days on end.