OPINION:
Nearly a decade after Barack Obama snuffed out America’s beacon of freedom to the world, President Trump has relighted the hopeful flame.
At nearly this exact point in Mr. Obama’s presidency, he launched his famous “apology tour,” traveling the globe seeking forgiveness for all America’s transgressions.
Warmongering, torture and slavery had become the ugly birthmarks of America. In Mr. Obama’s eyes, anyway.
That was before Mr. Obama went on to become the first president in history to wage war with every heartbeat of his presidency. Or the rise and spread of ISIS, which plumbed new depths of depravity in torturing innocents. Or the explosion of slavery, rape and human trafficking from South and Central America spawned by Mr. Obama’s heartless open-orders policies.
He traveled to Egypt with unrivaled credibility as the son of a Muslim to beckon the Muslim world into modernity? To teach the radical notions of free speech, self-governance and religious freedom? Instead, he apologized for America’s role in creating the internet, with its twisted view of “sexuality” and “mindless violence.”
Really? You have women living as covered servants and gays thrown off rooftops and America’s president apologized for the internet?
He also claimed it was “part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”
Seriously? Can you believe that huckster peddled himself as a “constitutional scholar”? No wonder he suffered so many unanimous beat-downs by the Supreme Court during his presidency.
The problem with Barack Obama — other than having never actually read the Constitution — is that he never understood the radical notion of self-governance upon which America was founded. He views government as a great force of paternal benevolence.
It is why he gave us government-run Obamacare, which is just a fancy, self-idolizing term for socialized medicine and rationed health care. Most Orwellian of all, Mr. Obama named it the “Affordable” Care Act.
Well, sir, if it is so “affordable,” why does the federal government have to mandate everyone buy it?
Maybe if you shut up long enough and listened to the great people of Poland and other Eastern European countries for which you had such disdain, they would have happily explained it to you.
Socialism didn’t work there, and it will not work here.
Mr. Obama is gone now, and his legacy is being systematically dismantled by Mr. Trump.
Among Mr. Trump’s earliest initiatives was undoing the Obama Doctrine of apology and appeasement.
Mr. Obama’s commitment to Defeat without Peace and America Last have been replaced by an era of American Exceptionalism. America’s Beacon of Hope shines brightly once again.
In Warsaw, Mr. Trump celebrated our warm friendship with the “soul of Europe.”
“You stood in solidarity against oppression, against a lawless secret police, against a cruel and wicked system that impoverished your cities and your souls,” he said. “And you won. Poland prevailed. Poland will always prevail.”
And this gem, which certainly went right over Mr. Obama’s head, but may as well have been aimed directly at the heart of Obamacare: “The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies.”
Mr. Trump’s entire powerful and elegant speech reminded me of so many thrilling lines from “Casablanca.” In particular, this one near the end of the film when Victor Laszlo turns to Rick after getting the letters of transit and says: “Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win.”
• Charles Hurt can be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com and on Twitter by @charleshurt.
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