President Obama and The Age of Revisionism

President Obama's recent trip abroad to meet with world leaders and his attendance at the G20 meeting allowed us to watch him in action overseas for the first time as our nation's leader. So, how did he do? As usual, he was charming and quite eager to let everyone he met know that he is not George W. Bush. Did he actually realize many of his foreign policy objectives? If we use Afghanistan as a measuring stick, I think that any critical thinker will come to the conclusion that he achieved almost nothing. Once again, European leaders have chosen to sit on their hands instead of offering them to us in our fight against the Taliban and Al Quaida. The administration, in an attempt to lower expectations, has argued that a shift in European cooperation will take time because the Obama team must repair the damage made by the "arrogant" unilateral foreign policy decisions of the Bush Administration. How long must we endure the Obama Administration's finger pointing? Can his White House and the democratically controlled Congress ever come to terms with the fact that continually painting George W. Bush as the bogey man will grow tiresome and achieve nothing for our nation's interest?

There is alot of truth to the old saying, "When in charge, take charge!" President Obama would do well to more closely study our nation's history vis-a-vis Europe. Almost since our inception as a nation, Europe has despised our country's rising influence on the world scene. Europeans have generally and often continue to view us as a somewhat uncivilized and uncultured "colony" that somehow managed to break away from European control. Alexis de Toqueville wrote in the 1830s that our nation was lacking in the disciplines of philosophy and the arts. Many of us look to Europe for providing us with refined culture instead of looking at and admiring our own distinctive American culture. This desire to emulate Europe is nothing new and Ralph Waldo Emerson thoroughly chided his fellow citizens for not expending their energies on developing a unique American culture. President Obama, for some reason believes that a subordinate approach to Europe will cause us to be more liked on the world scene and will assist in the realization of our foreign policy initiatives. Europeans love a subordinate and fawning America because it inflates their own feelings of self importance even though, everyone knows that since the end of World War II, the European continent has been basically impudent when it comes to enforcing any type of reaction to the repression or genocide of people around the globe.

President Obama has chosen to follow a common theme in his dealings with the world. His conciliatory approach to foreign nations and public recognition of our nation's transgressions is also a common theme taught in the classrooms of our nation's university level American History courses. I am a history buff and it amazes me just how many new American history books have taken a revised approach at describing our nation's turbulent past. Many historians seem to concentrate on our nation's warts rather than objectively looking at these warts and accurately describing their effect on our country's body. All nations on this globe have a dark side to their history. If I'm not mistaken, Africans are still paying for the high cost of European colonization on their continent. Why does the president seem willing to publicly hang our nation's head in shame? I believe that he is merely a product of the academic environment in which he has spent the majority of his adult life. Such a disjointed view of our nation's history does us a disservice and contrary to his intentions, will not endear us to the world.

At times, has our nation failed to achieve the self realization of it's founding documents? Have we hopefully learned from our missteps? Will we trip up yet again? The answer to the preceding sentences is yes however; I believe that we still are a nation of great possibility and endless horizons and, as an American citizen I will not hang my head in shame or offer our nation's dirty laundry as evidence to the world of our country's less than stellar past. I will eagerly place our country's record against any other country on the globe.

De Oppresso Liber