By Betsy Newmark
High School History and Government Teacher/Blogger

Occasionally, Obama has indicated that he has a weak sense of American history. He didn’t seem to know that the Cold War was not a time when the world was standing as one. He didn’t know the history of presidential summits and seems to think that FDR and Truman met with our nation’s enemies. He didn’t know how the Nuremberg Trials worked. And I’m not even talking about his mistake that Americans liberated Auschwitz.

But I think his remark when the little girl asked him why he decided to run for president and he gave this response.

“America is …, uh, is no longer, uh … what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, I don’t want that future for my children.”

As you watch the video, it’s clear that he formed his words carefully and was thinking about how to answer the little girl.

I’m wondering when is the time that Obama thinks that we were what we could be. It couldn’t have been when we had slavery. So that takes us to 1865. It couldn’t be when we had states divided by terrible Jim Crow laws that segregated society and disenfranchised an entire race. So that takes us to the mid-1960s. It probably wasn’t when we were divided and torn apart by the Vietnam War and racial violence. So that takes us to the 1970s. I doubt that it was when we were suffering devastating stagflation and seeing our hostages being paraded in front of the cameras. So that takes us to 1980. We’re left with the Reagan-Bush years. Is Obama yearning for Morning in America? Many conservatives remember that period with nostalgia; does Obama share that feeling? No, certainly not the 1980s, that decade of greed.

Or is he talking about the Clinton years? Was that the time when we were what we could be? Why then run against Hillary Clinton? And that was a time when we were supposedly being divided by bitter partisanship. Is he yearning for the time when the Republicans controlled Congress? The days of impeachment? Or is he thinking about when we had our heads in the sand regarding the growing development of Al Qaeda terrorism? If that was the one period in our time when we were what we could be, then wouldn’t he have wanted to put that team back in the White House? And we know that he isn’t talking about the Bush years. So what was he talking about?

This matches up with some of the things his wife has said. His wife thinks that we are a “downright mean” country.

Obama begins with a broad assessment of life in America in 2008, and life is not good: we’re a divided country, we’re a country that is “just downright mean,” we are “guided by fear,” we’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents. “We have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day,” she said, as heads bobbed in the pews. “Folks are just jammed up, and it’s gotten worse over my lifetime. And, doggone it, I’m young. Forty-four!”

We can narrow down when that better time was as far as his wife is concerned. She says it’s gotten worse over her lifetime and she’s 44. I’m still trying to figure out when in the past 44 years she thinks that it was better. Ed Morrissey reminds us of some other remarks that Michelle Obama has said that indicated her dislike of this country. It now seems that her husband shares some of that disdain. Or does he? She’s also said that this is the first time in her adult life that she is proud of America because America had the good sense to vote for her husband. So does she think that we’re now being what we could be? Or was her childhood during the 1960s and 70s that time when America was so good. It’s all very confusing.

As Jennifer Rubin says, this remark wasn’t a gaffe, but a theme.

But really, it is not just a matter of an off-the-cuff remark. (By the way can you imagine that if Joe Biden is selected as VP he might actually be the less gaffe-prone of the two?) That gloomy assessment and glum world outlook is essential to his message. Remember: if the country is not in dire straits then no ordinary, experienced politician will do. We have to throw away the playbook, take a leap of faith and elect the One Who Is Like No Other. So of course everything must be worse than before — why else would we need Him?

You know, this wasn’t a tough question. She was asking him why he wanted to be president. Ever since Roger Mudd flummoxed Teddy Kennedy, candidates have known how to answer that question. He could have talked about the challenges that our country faces and how he wanted to lead us to a better tomorrow. He was given an opening to talk about how much he loves this country and wants to serve it. If he had to return to his usual solipsism, he could have talked about how proud he is to be the first candidate of a mixed racial heritage to be nominated by a major political party and how far we have come from our grim racial history and how he is looking forward to leading the country as we continued our progress.

Many liberals supporting Obama’s campaign probably don’t see anything wrong with Obama’s reply. But those aren’t the people he needs to convince. If he’s worry about those bitter, clinging voters who voted for Hillary in the primaries, this sort of talk isn’t going to win them over.

And I hope that one day, some reporter, or maybe just another seven-year old child, will ask him. When exactly were those golden, halcyon days? What are all those qualities that he believes represent what we can be and what we once were? And when exactly was that period in American history when we satisfied all those criteria? I hope that those journalists or townhall participants at Obama events who will be trying to think of what questions to ask Obama if they get the opportunity will consider asking him when we were what we could be and if we were waiting for the change that we would be today back then? It all is very confusing, but I’m sure that he can deconstruct it for us.