A MAN NOT "OF US" - AT 9:50 A.M. ET:  Why is President Obama down so far in the polls, compared to where he was?  In part, I think, it's because his policies reflect a man who is president of us, but is not "of us."  Rich Lowry writes a terrific piece today pointing out that the president has declined an invitation to visit Berlin on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.  What a strange thing to do...unless you're Barack Obama: 

He has begged off going to Berlin next week to attend ceremonies commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. His schedule is reportedly too crowded. John F. Kennedy famously told Berliners, "Ich bin ein Berliner." On the 20th anniversary of the last century's most stirring triumph of freedom, Obama is telling them, "Ich bin beschäftigt" - i.e., I'm busy.

It doesn't have quite the same ring, does it? Obama's failure to go to Berlin is the most telling nonevent of his presidency. It's hard to imagine any other American president eschewing the occasion. Only Obama - with his dismissive view of the Cold War as a relic distorting our thinking and his attenuated commitment to America's exceptional role in the world - would spurn German president Angela Merkel's invitation to attend.

Well said.  Obama doesn't have the "American" feel, does he?

Wouldn't Obama at least want to take the occasion to celebrate freedom and human rights - those most cherished liberal values? Not necessarily. He has mostly jettisoned them as foreign-policy goals in favor of a misbegotten realism that soft-pedals the crimes of nasty regimes around the world. During the Cold War, we undermined our enemies by shining a bright light on their repression. In Berlin, JFK called out the Communists on their "offense against humanity." Obama would utter such a phrase only with the greatest trepidation, lest it undermine a future opportunity for dialogue.

Right on.

Pres. Ronald Reagan realized we could meet with the Soviets without conceding the legitimacy of their system. He always spoke up for the dissidents - even when it irked his negotiating partner, Mikhail Gorbachev. Whatever the hardheaded imperatives of geopolitics, we'd remain a beacon of liberty in the world.

Obama has relegated this aspirational aspect of American power to the back seat. For him, we are less an exceptional power than one among many, seeking deals with our peers in Beijing and Moscow. Why would Obama want to celebrate the refuseniks of the Eastern Bloc, when he won't even meet with the Dalai Lama in advance of his trip to China?

Finally....

An American president will skip events marking the end of a struggle to which we, as a nation - under presidents of both parties - devoted blood and treasure for 50 years. For Barack Obama, 1989 is just another far-away year - and the Democratic party of such men as Harry S. Truman and JFK has never seemed more distant.

COMMENT:  Obama's thinking, and it's not original with him, is the reason why so many of us drifted from the old Democratic Party, the national-defense party.  Look at that party today.  What a pathetic organization of pseudo-sophisticated trendies, much like Britain's Labour Party.  And at the top is the trendiest of them all, The One, the Holy of Holies.  Except the parishioners are leaving the pews.

November 3, 2009