Obama’s view of America

I'd like to hook up the president to a lie detector and ask him this one simple question:

"On any given day, Mr. President, do you wake up feeling more proud of, or more embarrassed by, the United States of America?"

I'm not talking about America in the abstract -- the country President Barack Obama envisions in his idealized world view. I'm talking about America as it exists today.

It is my fervent hope, of course, that he loves this country and appreciates the beauty of our experiment in freedom. But sometimes the things his administration does make me wonder.

Take May 14, for example. It was another "beat up on America" day, courtesy of Obama. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner held a news conference after meeting with Chinese officials for a human rights "dialogue." Posner is a supposed expert on such things.

Before accepting an appointment to Team Obama at the State Department's Division of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Posner helped found and direct Human Rights First, an organization dedicated to "refugee protection, advancing a rights-based approach to national security, challenging crimes against humanity, and combating discrimination."

Not sure what a "rights-based approach to national security" is exactly. Fodder for another column, perhaps.

The point today being that Posner was recruited by the Obama administration for this specific role. He undoubtedly sees the world exactly as President Obama sees it.

And, it should be said, there's nothing wrong with engaging China and other countries on human rights. After all, the American experiment is nothing if it doesn't export and encourage freedom around the world.

While the rest of the world may view that as the arrogant conceit of a superpower with no right to fancy itself any more special than the rest of the "citizens of the world," the American experience teaches differently. We hold the truths espoused in the founding of this country to be "self-evident."

And not just "self-evident," but also "unalienable," and therefore applicable to all people -- even those with the bad luck of being born into an oppressive society. A society, not to put too fine a point on it, like China's.

So we righteously met with China on that country's dismal record of human rights abuses.

Now brace yourselves, because here comes the Obama view on U.S.-China relations.

When Posner was asked whether there was a time in which China was able to "turn the tables" on the American team by raising questions or concerns about U.S. practices around the globe or at home, he said this with the matter-of-factness of a guy describing current weather conditions:

"Part of a mature relationship is that you have an open discussion where you not only raise the other guy's problems, but you raise your own, and you have a discussion about it. We did plenty of that. We had experts from the U.S. side, for example, yesterday, talking about treatment of Muslim Americans in an immigration context. We had a discussion of racial discrimination. We had a back-and-forth about how each of our societies are dealing with those sorts of questions."

The reporter subsequently asked whether Arizona's law addressing illegal immigration came up. If so, did the Chinese bring it up, or did we bring it up? Stunningly, Obama's man said (and be forewarned -- his response might act as a stool softener for you):

"We brought it up early and often. It was mentioned in the first session, and as a troubling trend in our society and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination ... and these are issues ... being debated in our own society."

What? Team Obama brought up "early and often" the Arizona law to China? In a human rights discussion?

This is a law that has not yet taken effect, has not been read by the U.S. attorney general or the secretary of Homeland Security (probably not by the president or Posner, either), and does nothing more than mirror 70-year-old federal immigration law -- which President Obama is sworn to uphold, by the way).

Un-be-lievable.

The position of the United States, as now articulated by the Obama administration, is China's widespread crackdown on Internet use, free speech and religion, its use of prisoners for organ harvesting, its persecution of Tibet and the execution of more people than all other countries in the world combined, is on par with Arizona's immigration law?

You wonder what the Chinese delegation must have thought. Did they ask themselves: "Is this a trick question?"

And you wonder what the State Department expects from China. Are diplomats in the Chinese regime supposed to conduct a review, or just give the Arizona law some thought and get back to us?

Maybe the State Department will want to schedule a trip to Scottsdale next March for a combination spring training/concentration camp tour?

You simply can't make this nonsense up, folks.

But the scary part is, I don't think President Obama views what's going on in Arizona any differently than what's going on in China.

Which is why I'd like to know whether our president wakes every morning proud of America ... or embarrassed.

Sherman Frederick (sfrederick@ reviewjournal.com) is publisher of the Review-Journal and president of Stephens Media.