Bubble Boy

20 years ago today, the signal event of the 20th Century occurred. More significant than VE Day in Europe or VJ Day in the Pacific, for those just marked the ends of two great battles in the larger 70 Years War since Communism raised its ugly head in Russia in 1917.

The final volley in the 70 Years War was fired by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 when he uttered those immortal words in front of the Brandenburg Gate, "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Almost all of the best and brightest advised Reagan not to give such a speech. But he knew his times better than most, and his destiny and the destiny of his Country: to oppose those that would imprison human beings behind walls, barbed wire, and sick ideologies. And so, as near universal consensus acknowledges, President Reagan defeated Soviet Communism, won the 70 Years War, and ended the omnipresent nuclear crisis known as the Cold War, without firing a shot, with words, only words. But what words!

Which brings us to our current President, Barack Hussein Obama, II. He was invited by German Chancellor Merkel to attend the ceremonies marking this great occasion; unfortunately, he was otherwise engaged. That Presidential calendar sure can fill up quick!

But with what? In addition to ministerial functions like a British Prime Minister, the President performs the functions of a Monarch; that is, a President personifies the Nation, and participates in ceremonial occasions on behalf of all Americans, especially those that are central to the identity of this Country. There is hardly anything more central to what the United States is about than the fall of the Berlin Wall, and therefore hardly anything more important for our President to be doing today. Why did he not attend these ceremonies?

Helmut Kohl, then Chancellor of West Germany, said 20 years ago to President George H. W. Bush: “Without the U.S., this day would not have been possible. Tell your people that.” Tell them he did. But when he did, some Americans were not listening.

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As I have related here and here, President Obama is gripped in an ideology he learned as a young man. For he and his brethren of the 1980's, the fall of the Berlin Wall was not the living metaphor of a joyous celebration of freedom, but the distasteful triumphalism of a predatory capitalism foisted on the world by America. Those free people, dismantling brick by brick the "gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers," as President Reagan described it, were but dupes of the system. They were the soon-to-be petty bourgeoisie whose ignorant sloth would serve the interests of the real oppressors.

Nothing of the history of the last 20 years can penetrate ideology such as this. Rip Van Winkle eventually woke up, and began processing the changes of the new world around him. President Obama does not need to wake up, for he has never been asleep. Only encased in his bubble, safe and secure from any truth that might nudge him to engage the reality of the world as it is, not as he would wish it to be. Our President, the Bubble Boy.

That said, if our President will not represent the United States on this most momentous occasion, leave us not forget to offer our own little congratulations, to the German peoples, who endured post-World War II a horror disproportionate to any punishment they might have deserved, and now live in the freedom which is the birthright of all peoples, everywhere.

(h/t for the quotes herein, Bill Bennett).