Steyn: 'Transnational mush' at the UN

Mark Steyn on the latest installment of presidential eloquence:

But it is a pitiful reflection upon the state of the last superpower that, when it comes to the transnational mush drooled by the leader of the free world or the conspiracist ramblings of a terrorist pseudo-Bedouin running a one-man psycho-cult of a basket-case state, it's more or less a toss-up as to which of them is more unreal.

[. . .]

Although he affects a president-of-the-world manner, I don't think Barack Obama cares much about foreign affairs one way or the other. He has a huge transformative domestic agenda designed to leave this country looking much closer to the average Continental social democracy. His principal interest in the rest of the planet is that he doesn't need some nutjob nuking Cleveland before he's finished reducing it to a moribund socialist swamp. And so, like many European nations, when it comes to the global scene, President Obama has attitudes rather than policies. If you're on the receiving end – like Israel, Poland, Honduras – it's not pleasant, and it's going to get worse.

RTR.

After another of Obama's adolescent, historically illiterate, kumbaya international addresses, I'm more curious than ever about the collaboration that goes into creating his speeches. I remember one of his ultra-hip speechwriters who was touted in the press; I think he was about 15 years old, with an education, and a sense of humor, to match. (No offense intended, kids.) So it's not surprising that the speeches sound as though they were written by a high-school sophomore.

But Obama certainly controls the content and, in every meaningful sense, owns the speeches. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall and see what role he takes in the process. Does he deliver a list of cliches to be included? Does he himself excise all positive references to the US? Does he have a quota for anti-Americanisms, moral-equivalencies, straw men, etc.? Does he take what's given and then spice it up with references to himself?

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