D-Day Speeches

We listened to all 4 of the speeches yesterday during the D-Day Commemoration at the American Cemetery at Normandy, France.

I thought Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered the best, followed by Nicolas Sarkozy, Barack Hussein Obama, and Gordon Brown, in that order.

Gordon Brown, PM of the UK, who looked very unhappy ( wonder why ) , spiraled away from honoring the men of the Day into a political speech about Darfur among other things.

Prince Charles was there too, although he didn't speak and looked bored.
The interaction -or lack of- between the two Brits (seated next to one another) was interesting. I don't believe that either said a word to the other.

Obama's speech was not bad, at least he did not apologize to the French for littering the beach with 2,499 dead American soldiers on June 6, 1944.

Robbie Cooper at Urban Grounds makes this observation:

But I wanted to comment on one particular part of the speech — the part of the speech where President Obama was describing the horrors of Nazi ideology:

"Nazi ideology sought to subjugate, and humiliate, and exterminate, and perpetrated murder on a massive scale. Fueled by a hatred of those who were deemed different and therefore inferior. It was evil."

Every word of it true. Except of course you could give the exact same speech, and simply replace the word “Nazi” with “Islam” and it would be no less true.

Now, if Obama had given that speech in Cairo instead of the one he did, I would praise him for his courage.

"I call upon all who love freedom to stand with us."
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 6, 1944