Editor in Chief
Youssef Sidhom
Watani
عربى English French
  • News
    • Accidents
    • Crime
    • Diplomatic briefcase
    • NewsLine
    • Outside Cairo
    • Special Occasions
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • International media
    • Reader`s Corner
    • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • International Politics
    • Islamisation Politics
    • National Affairs
    • Parliament
    • Politics
    • Protests
    • Rights
    • Terrorism
  • Culture
    • Antiquity
    • Art
    • Books
    • Culture
    • Drama
    • Egyptology
    • Festivals
    • Films
    • Heritage
    • Islamisation Culture
    • Media
    • Museums
    • Music
    • TV
  • Coptic
    • Church Affairs
    • Coptic Affairs
    • Coptic Culture
    • Copts in the Media
    • Coptology
    • Copts Abroad
    • Religious
      • P. Shenouda: Bible Study
    • Sectarian
    • Inter-religious
    • Holy Family
  • Features
    • Counselling Corner
    • features
    • Economy
      • Business
    • Education
    • Social Issues
      • Behaviour
      • Mothers Day
    • Health
    • Environment
    • Humour
    • In memorial
    • Interviews
    • Nile
    • Profile
    • Special needs
    • Sports
    • Technology
    • Tourism
    • Wars
    • Women
    • Youth
  • Watani Special Features
    • Egypt – Arab Spring
      • 25 January Revolution
      • 25 Jan revolution, one year on
      • Egypt post-30 June
    • Watani Milestones
      • 20 years Watani International
      • 10 years Watani International
      • Watani Jubilee
    • Pope Shenouda
    • Pope Tawadros
    • Watani Forum
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Accidents
    • Crime
    • Diplomatic briefcase
    • NewsLine
    • Outside Cairo
    • Special Occasions
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • International media
    • Reader`s Corner
    • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • International Politics
    • Islamisation Politics
    • National Affairs
    • Parliament
    • Politics
    • Protests
    • Rights
    • Terrorism
  • Culture
    • Antiquity
    • Art
    • Books
    • Culture
    • Drama
    • Egyptology
    • Festivals
    • Films
    • Heritage
    • Islamisation Culture
    • Media
    • Museums
    • Music
    • TV
  • Coptic
    • Church Affairs
    • Coptic Affairs
    • Coptic Culture
    • Copts in the Media
    • Coptology
    • Copts Abroad
    • Religious
      • P. Shenouda: Bible Study
    • Sectarian
    • Inter-religious
    • Holy Family
  • Features
    • Counselling Corner
    • features
    • Economy
      • Business
    • Education
    • Social Issues
      • Behaviour
      • Mothers Day
    • Health
    • Environment
    • Humour
    • In memorial
    • Interviews
    • Nile
    • Profile
    • Special needs
    • Sports
    • Technology
    • Tourism
    • Wars
    • Women
    • Youth
  • Watani Special Features
    • Egypt – Arab Spring
      • 25 January Revolution
      • 25 Jan revolution, one year on
      • Egypt post-30 June
    • Watani Milestones
      • 20 years Watani International
      • 10 years Watani International
      • Watani Jubilee
    • Pope Shenouda
    • Pope Tawadros
    • Watani Forum
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
Watani
ع Fr
ADVERTISEMENT

Hovering on High: Obama Surveys the World

15 December, 2011 - (10:12 AM)
0 0

Charles Krauthammer

31
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


When President Obama returned from his first European trip, I observed that while over there he had been “acting the philosopher-king who hovers above the fray mediating” between America and the world. Now that Obama has returned from his “Muslim world” pilgrimage, even the left agrees. “Obama##s standing above the country, above — above the world. He##s sort of God,” Newsweek##s Evan Thomas said to a concurring Chris Matthews, reflecting on Obama##s lofty perception of himself as the great transcender.


Not that Obama considers himself divine. (He sees himself as merely messianic, or, at worst, apostolic.) But he does position himself as hovering above mere mortals, mere country, to gaze benignly upon the darkling plain beneath him where ignorant armies clash by night, blind to the common humanity that only he can see. Traveling the world, he brings the gospel of understanding and godly forbearance. We have all sinned against each other. We must now look beyond that and walk together to the sunny uplands of comity and understanding. He shall guide you. Thus:


(A) He told Iran that, on the one hand, America once helped overthrow an Iranian government, while on the other hand “Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.” (Played a role?!) We have both sinned; let us bury the past and begin anew.



(B) On religious tolerance, he gently referenced the Christians of Lebanon and Egypt, then lamented that the “divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence” (note the use of the passive voice). He then criticized (in the active voice) Western religious intolerance for regulating the wearing of the hijab — after citing America for making it difficult for Muslims to give to charity.



(C) Obama offered Muslims a careful admonition about women##s rights, noting how denying women education impoverishes a country — balanced, of course, with “meanwhile, the struggle for women##s equality continues in many aspects of American life.”



Well, yes. On the one hand, there certainly is some American university where the women##s softball team has received insufficient funds — while, on the other hand, Saudi women showing ankle are beaten in the street, Afghan school girls have acid thrown in their faces, and Iranian women are publicly stoned to death for adultery. We all have our shortcomings, our national foibles. Who##s to judge?


That##s the problem with Obama##s transcultural evenhandedness. It gives the veneer of professorial sophistication to the most simple-minded observation: Of course there are rights and wrongs in all human affairs. Our species is a fallen one. But that doesn##t mean that these rights and wrongs are of equal weight.


A CIA rent-a-mob in a coup 56 years ago does not balance the hostage-takings, throat-slittings, terror bombings and wanton slaughters perpetrated for 30 years by a thug regime in Teheran (and its surrogates) that our own State Department calls the world##s “most active state sponsor of terrorism.”


True, France prohibits the wearing of the hijab in certain public places, in part to allow the force of law to protect Muslim women who might be coerced into wearing it by neighborhood fundamentalist gangs. But it borders on the obscene to compare this mild preference for secularization (seen in Muslim Turkey as well) to the violence that has been visited upon Copts, Maronites, Baha##i, Druze and other minorities in Muslim lands, and to the unspeakable cruelties perpetrated by Shiites and Sunnis upon each other.


Even on freedom of religion, Obama could not resist the compulsion to find fault with his own country: “For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation” — disgracefully giving the impression to a foreign audience not versed in our laws that there is active discrimination against Muslims, when the only restriction, applied to all donors regardless of religion, is on funding charities that serve as fronts for terror.


Obama undoubtedly thinks he is demonstrating historical magnanimity with all these moral equivalencies and self-flagellating apologetics. On the contrary. He##s showing cheap condescension, an unseemly hunger for applause and a willingness to distort history for political effect.



Distorting history is not truth-telling, but the telling of soft lies. Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership, but moral abdication. And hovering above it all, above country and history, is a sign not of transcendence but of a disturbing ambivalence toward one##s own country.
___________________
The Washington Post


 



 

Comments

comments

Tags: highHoveringObamaSurveysworld

Related Posts

Coptic Church condemns bombing of Gaza hospital, donates humanitarian aid
Coptic Affairs

Coptic Church condemns bombing of Gaza hospital, donates humanitarian aid

October 18, 2023
Egypt sends medical aid to help Lebanon to fight Cholera
Health

Egypt sends medical aid to help Lebanon to fight Cholera

November 13, 2022
Egypt supports Lebanon in its distress
International Politics

Egypt supports Lebanon in its distress

August 19, 2020
Do Christians face extinction in Iraq?
International Politics

Do Christians face extinction in Iraq?

February 19, 2020
Murder of two Muslims threatens to generate sectarian strife
International Politics

Murder of two Muslims threatens to generate sectarian strife

May 31, 2017
Children of Syria…Flight into the unknown
International Politics

Children of Syria…Flight into the unknown

April 20, 2016

Editorial

“For a free Palestine”: The West expresses outrage

More

MOST READ

The Egyptian and Ethiopian Churches: Bound by history
Coptic Affairs

The Egyptian and Ethiopian Churches: Bound by history

September 30, 2015
0

“A little girl does not stay forever in her mother’s arms. She grows and, at some point, leaves her mother...

Read more
For 28 years in Port Said: Holy Virgin icon still drips miraculous oil

For 28 years in Port Said: Holy Virgin icon still drips miraculous oil

February 26, 2018
Land of sad oranges

Land of sad oranges

December 15, 2011
The children’s friend

The children’s friend

November 27, 2023
Hungarian President received by Pope Tawadros

Hungarian President received by Pope Tawadros

November 28, 2023

Features

“Speak, we shall listen”: Forum for persons with disabilities
Economy

“Speak, we shall listen”: Forum for persons with disabilities

December 5, 2023
0

“Speak, We Will Listen” was the slogan of a forum launched in Cairo on 2 December by Egypt’s National Council...

Read more
Watani started as an Egyptian weekly Sunday newspaper published in Cairo. The word Watani is Arabic for “My Homeland”. The paper was founded in 1958 by the prominent Copt Antoun Sidhom (1915 – 1995), who strove for the establishment of a civil, democratic society in Egypt, where all Egyptians would enjoy full citizenship rights regardless of their religious denomination. To this day when Watani is published as a weekly paper and an online news site, the objective remains the same. Those in charge of Watani view this role as a patriotic all-Egyptian vocation. Special attention is given to shedding light on Coptic culture and tradition as authentically Egyptian, this being a topic largely disregarded or little-understood by Egypt’s media. Watani is deeply dedicated to offer its readers high quality, extensive, objective, credible and well-researched media coverage, with special focus on Coptic issues, culture, heritage, and contribution to Egyptian society.
-----------------------------------------------------------

27 Abdel Khalek Tharwat st, Downtown, Abdeen,Cairo

00202-23927201

00202-23935946

 [email protected]

      

categories

  • News
  • Opinion
  • Politics
  • Culture
  • Egypt – Arab Spring
  • Coptic Affairs
  • Features
  • Watani Special Features

Recent Posts

  • “Speak, we shall listen”: Forum for persons with disabilities
  • Expatriate Egyptians cast their ballots in presidential election
  • “For a free Palestine”: The West expresses outrage
  • Hungarian President received by Pope Tawadros
  • Egypt in Met’s Africa & Byzantium
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Politics
  • Culture
  • Egypt – Arab Spring
  • Coptic Affairs
  • Features
  • Watani Special Features

Powered BY 3A Digital.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Accidents
    • Crime
    • Diplomatic briefcase
    • NewsLine
    • Outside Cairo
    • Special Occasions
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • International media
    • Reader`s Corner
    • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • International Politics
    • Islamisation Politics
    • National Affairs
    • Parliament
    • Politics
    • Protests
    • Rights
    • Terrorism
  • Culture
    • Antiquity
    • Art
    • Books
    • Culture
    • Drama
    • Egyptology
    • Festivals
    • Films
    • Heritage
    • Islamisation Culture
    • Media
    • Museums
    • Music
    • TV
  • Coptic
    • Church Affairs
    • Coptic Affairs
    • Coptic Culture
    • Copts in the Media
    • Coptology
    • Copts Abroad
    • Religious
      • P. Shenouda: Bible Study
    • Sectarian
    • Inter-religious
    • Holy Family
  • Features
    • Counselling Corner
    • features
    • Economy
      • Business
    • Education
    • Social Issues
      • Behaviour
      • Mothers Day
    • Health
    • Environment
    • Humour
    • In memorial
    • Interviews
    • Nile
    • Profile
    • Special needs
    • Sports
    • Technology
    • Tourism
    • Wars
    • Women
    • Youth
  • Watani Special Features
    • Egypt – Arab Spring
      • 25 January Revolution
      • 25 Jan revolution, one year on
      • Egypt post-30 June
    • Watani Milestones
      • 20 years Watani International
      • 10 years Watani International
      • Watani Jubilee
    • Pope Shenouda
    • Pope Tawadros
    • Watani Forum

Powered BY 3A Digital.

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In