It’s bad enough that President Obama could not be bothered to attend the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But Hillary Clinton’s refusal to even acknowledge the role played by Ronald Reagan in the Wall’s demise as well as the downfall of Communism was highly insulting towards one of the greatest figures of our time, and reeked of petty and partisan mean-spiritedness.
The Secretary of State’s remarks yesterday in Berlin completely erased from history the huge contribution played not only by President Reagan but also by the United States in confronting the Soviet Empire. In her speech she applauded half of Europe, but could not bring herself to thank those Americans who bravely served their country and in many cases laid down their lives in defeating Communism, under Reagan’s leadership.
Here is what Clinton said in Berlin on behalf of the Obama administration:
“We remember the allies who conducted the largest humanitarian airlift in history, completing more than a quarter million flights to sustain the people of West Berlin. We remember the Poles – (applause) – who waged a campaign for liberty that began with a strike in the shipyards of Gdansk and ended by shattering a system of tyranny. We remember a Polish Pope who spoke out for the aspirations of people across Europe and the world. (Applause.) We remember the people of the Baltics who joined hands across their lands and helped to break the chains that held their nations captive. We remember the students of Prague who propelled a dissident playwright from a jail cell to the presidency of a free republic. And tonight, we remember the Germans on both sides of the wall, but particularly the Germans in the East who stood up and finally were able to say, “No more. Freedom is our birthright and we will take it by our own hands.”
Incredibly, Clinton ended her remarks, with a tribute not to the tens of millions of victims of Communism, but to Barack Obama!
“I am deeply honored to introduce now a message from someone who represents the fall of different kinds of walls – of walls of discrimination, of stereotype, of character, the walls that too often are inside minds and hearts. Let me introduce a message from President Barack Obama.”
Hillary Clinton would do well to learn from Margaret Thatcher, a great friend of the United States, whom I had the privilege of working for in her private office. Like Ronald Reagan she is a statesman who understands that evil must be confronted and defeated, and a true leader who believes in the greatness of America as a force for good on the world stage.
As Lady Thatcher observed in her eulogy to Reagan at his funeral service at the National Cathedral in Washington in June 2004:
“We live today in the world that Ronald Reagan began to reshape… It is a very different world, with different challenges and new dangers. All in all, however, it is one of greater freedom and prosperity, one more hopeful than the world he inherited on becoming president. .. With the lever of American patriotism, he lifted up the world. And so today, the world – in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw and Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev, and in Moscow itself, the world mourns the passing of the great liberator and echoes his prayer: God bless America.”
These were the words that Clinton should have echoed in front of the Brandenburg Gate – a recognition of President Reagan’s huge contribution to the advancement of freedom in Europe and across the world.
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