Stunning:
If Obama truly believes that immigrants are learning English, then why is it his priority to make sure that American kids learn Spanish — as opposed to some other foreign language? If his goal is to make sure that America produces more speakers of languages that affect our commerce and foreign policy, then surely Chinese and Arabic would warrant a strong mention? If his focus is on Spanish, the only logical reason is that he recognizes a problem with the rate at which hispanic immigrants adopt English. And when Barack speaks of the ugly American abroad, he sounds like he’s channeling something he heard in a Paris salon. You’d think a Harvard graduate would recognize that a European needs to learn several languages to travel just a few hundred miles from home — something Americans don’t have to do (neither do most Chinese and Indians, for that matter). And beyond that, international travelers don’t necessarily learn English to travel to the U.S.; they learn it because it is the world’s first language. Whether they’re in Beijing, or Cairo, or Sao Paolo, or Warsaw, they can get by if they know English. Beyond that, this moment shows pretty well how poor a campaigner Obama is. He has stumbled over this issue before. When he did, he was roasted in some parts of the blogosphere. The uproar was so great that Rasmussen took a poll on this question, specifically — concluding that an overwhelming majority of Americans disagree with him. You would think that Obama might have learned to stay away from the issue, or phrase his views better. You would be wrong of course. Instead, he found an even more insulting and condescending way to show his contempt. No wonder he’s afraid of townhall meetings with McCain. HT: RedState
