At the Corner, John J. Pitney Jr. does the job that AP used to do, before they transferred all of their staff over to research Sarah Palin’s book, and fact checks a slightly hyperbolic claim by the president:
“As America’s first Pacific president,” said President Obama in Tokyo, “I promise you that this Pacific nation will strengthen and sustain our leadership in this vitally important part of the world.”
It is true that the president was born in Hawaii (sorry, birthers), lived from ages six to ten in Indonesia, and attended a Honolulu prep school. But he is not our first Pacific president. Richard Nixon was born in California in 1913, and spent much more of his life in the Pacific region than the current president has. Moreover, while Barack Obama made his career in Chicago and Springfield, Ronald Reagan made his in Los Angeles and Sacramento.
And the incumbent is hardly the first chief executive to have lived in another Pacific Rim country. William Howard Taft was governor-general of the Philippines. Dwight Eisenhower had military postings in the Philippines and the Panama Canal Zone. Herbert Hoover worked as a mining engineer in Australia and China; he even learned to speak Mandarin. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Bush 41 all served in the Pacific during the Second World War. What they did as adults was perhaps more consequential than what Obama did as a child.
Meanwhile, as far as what Obama is doing for today’s children, Big Hollywood presents: “The ‘Fourth Graders For Obama’ YouTube Channel.”
Related: And speaking of the Pacific Theater of World War II, as John Hinderaker of Power Line tweets, “Was Truman right to end WWII? Obama can’t say.”
Related: From the Anchoress: “I feel like Brandon deWilde…”
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35 Comments
1. Banjo:Why would you expect a man who thinks we have 57 states to know this? It it racism to set the geography bar this high.
Nov 14, 2009 - 4:40 pm 2. Banjo:Sorry, it IS racism to set the bar so high. I must now bow and ask forgiveness.
Nov 14, 2009 - 4:43 pm 3. “I feel like Brandon deWilde…” » The Anchoress | A First Things Blog:[...] says it is, of a particular moment. He is consistent only in his self-referential glorifying, his primping sense of singularity and his apologies for America. Mark calls him a “petulant child.” I think he’s [...]
Nov 14, 2009 - 5:10 pm 4. LYNNDH:You forget. Nothing before BO matters or counts, except that Bush was evil.
Nov 14, 2009 - 6:48 pm 5. Alex Bensky:First, Truman did the right, or at least the least evil, thing. There is no plausible alternative sequence of events that would not have resulted in more Japanese deaths, more American deaths, and more Chinese deaths–everyone forgets that there was heavy fighting in China.
But the absolutely astonishing thing is that for goodness sake the guy is going to Japan as the President of the United States, and clearly he hadn’t even thought about this question.
Nov 14, 2009 - 6:50 pm 6. Instapundit » Blog Archive » QUESTIONING THE “First Pacific President” assertion….:[...] QUESTIONING THE “First Pacific President” assertion. [...]
Nov 14, 2009 - 8:18 pm 7. robotech master:“It is true that the president was born in Hawaii (sorry, birthers),”
You know its funny… for such “crazy talk” as they claim they seem to go out of they’re way to attack constitutionalists…
Nov 14, 2009 - 9:08 pm 8. Allende:Stanford’s Herbert Hoover?
Nov 14, 2009 - 9:25 pm 9. jgreene:Obama, as usual is simply an empty-suit, totally full of s**t. He’s a continuing embarrasment to the United States of America.
Nov 14, 2009 - 9:25 pm 10. J in StL:Obama is the best case there is as to the absolute worthlessness of an Ivy League education. Only his unbridled sense of Awesomeness exceeds his absolute total lack of knowledge about ANYTHING that is not based on liberal dogma.
An Ivy League education doesn’t make people smart. It makes them connected. To better perpetuate self-anointed ruling class they’ve created.
Nov 14, 2009 - 9:29 pm 11. Conservadick:Maybe “Pacific” is the latest PC replacement for “African-American” but no one’s told us, yet.
Nov 14, 2009 - 9:32 pm 12. Mkelley:Maybe he meant to say “pacifist”.
Nov 14, 2009 - 9:33 pm 13. jdkchem:Just when you think “incompetent tool” cannot possibly mean any worse the unaccomplished clown shows he’s not finished demonstrating he can be more incompetent today than he was yesterday. Obviously the dummycrat party, convinced that Bush was incompetent, had to demonstrate that they could elect the most incompetent precedent ever.
Nov 14, 2009 - 9:35 pm 14. Tweets that mention Ed Driscoll » America’s “First Pacific President?” -- Topsy.com:[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ed Driscoll, Flo Johnson. Flo Johnson said: America’s “First Pacific President?” http://bit.ly/JGVuv [...]
Nov 14, 2009 - 9:40 pm 15. ahem:America’s first Female President.
Nov 14, 2009 - 9:55 pm 16. Buford Gooch:He may not be our first Pacific President, but he is our first affirmative action President.
Nov 14, 2009 - 10:00 pm 17. ronnor:He might be our first affirmative action President but he will sure be the last. The Democrats along with the MSM can’t be trusted with the security and well being of the United States, they have apparently took the Marxist/communist pill that makes them think they can deliver ‘Utopia’ with just a more and more tax and a lot more spending.
Communists have murdered over 200,000,000 of their own citizens, we have reasons to worry. We have communists in government now.
Nov 14, 2009 - 10:16 pm 18. Rich Vail:On the other hand…Mr. Obama is the first pacific president who actively hates America…after all. all of his policies make sense…if you understand that he hates the country that nurtured him.
Nov 14, 2009 - 11:22 pm 19. Kurt:Ed, you misread Obama entirely. He said, “the first pacific president” (lowercase p).
Nov 14, 2009 - 11:34 pm 20. daddy:Look it up in the dictionary/thesaurus: peacable, pacifist, nonagressive, unwarlike.
Obama knew exactly what he was saying. He’s promising the world that he will be the most timid commander-in-chief of the USA that there has ever been.
How ’bout we just save time by calling Air Force 1 “The Turnip Truck”, as in “Falling off the Turnip truck.”
Nov 15, 2009 - 12:05 am 21. Joel:My bad, I thought it said “First Pacifier President.”
I’d buy that.
Nov 15, 2009 - 12:49 am 22. Merry:I’m sure you’re right, Kurt, about the timidity, but for the record it’s upper case “Pacific” in the White House transcript, and upper case is clearly what he meant from the context.
Nov 15, 2009 - 1:26 am 23. Pat Patterson:I’m sure the rejoinder will be that this claim refers to his interest in the Pacific region but then that founders on the efforts of TR to mediate the Russians out and the Japanese in as strategic partners with the US. Plus winning a Nobel Peace Prize to end the that war as opposed to winning one for being opposed to war still leaves the balance of accomplishment with Teddy.
Nov 15, 2009 - 2:54 am 24. egoist:On the road to President of the World (POTH), you have to start staking out claims at some point.
Nov 15, 2009 - 3:14 am 25. Pete:The claim to be the “first Pacific president” by virtue of birth and childhood is entirely accurate in the liberal world, in which qualities that arise from the condition of one’s birth are believed determinative of entitlement whereas those which derive from achievement are diminished. Thus the activities of Taft et al., even if Obama knew much about them (which his evidence for historical knowledge to date suggests that he probably did not) were carried out by working adults making choices and sacrifices for our country, whereas for entitlement, birth circumstances are what counts.
Nov 15, 2009 - 4:57 am 26. Marc Malone:I hear, “the first Unspecific President”.
Great comments, everyone! Fun stuff.
Nov 15, 2009 - 5:22 am 27. Viiny Vidivici:Pete:
I think you’re right, and it plays well with the deliberately mis-educated, historically-illiterate products of our public schools and politically-compromised universities.
Nov 15, 2009 - 5:38 am 28. Tesserian:End “Imperial Republic” strategy.
Begin “Great Nation State” strategy.
Nov 15, 2009 - 5:47 am 29. joel:Don’t forget FDR as a Pacific president. His maternal grandfather made the Roosevelt fortune running opium into China. Roosevelt was highly involved in Chinese politics, and launched this country on the path to war because of the Japanese invasion of China.
Obama’s incredible lack of knowledge will not bother his liberal base. They are just as ignorant as he is.
Nov 15, 2009 - 5:54 am 30. Buck Smith:First Pacific President, I don’t know, maybe. First Pacifist, yeah he’s that
Nov 15, 2009 - 6:52 am 31. matt:Don’t forget TR, who brokered the end of the Russo-Japanese War or Nixon’s engagement of China, perhaps the single greatest event of the 20th Century beyond the fall of the Wall in Berlin.
We have a narcissistic moron at the helm.
Nov 15, 2009 - 7:28 am 32. whosebone:As to your assertion that obama was born in hawaii i would only as where is your proof?
Nov 15, 2009 - 9:17 am 33. whosebone:ask*
Nov 15, 2009 - 9:18 am 34. GayPatriot » Obama’s Grandiosity About Himself/His Animosity Toward his Predecessor:[...] [...]
Nov 16, 2009 - 1:18 am 35. Rich Rostrom:I wouldn’t say Johnson “served in the Pacific”; while still serving as a U.S. Representative, he showed up in Australia, wangled a commission, and was a deadhead passenger on ONE bomber mission.
Nov 16, 2009 - 9:58 pm