President Obama’s speech to the United Nations, which he delivered this morning in New York, is filled with lots of little surprises. (For instance, “the United Nations helped avert a third World War.” Really?) But the big surprise is that he’s made his address to the General Assembly into a campaign speech.
He beats up on the Bush administration:
Then he brags about his accomplishments in ending these terrible wars:
And brags about the killing of Osama bin Laden:
I can’t recall the last time a covert American military operation designed to kill a foreign national was boasted about on the floor of the U.N.
He even uses the language of his jobs plan address when talking about Palestinian statehood:
You can practically hear him demanding, Pass this statehood bill!
The concluding section of Obama’s speech is pure ’70s-era liberalism: The two besetting threats to the world order are—you guessed it—nuclear weapons and poverty.
Of course, in a way, this is all very fitting. The United Nations is the perfect place for the president to try to nail down his base.
