Catalyst for change in Iran? It's not Obama

... any more than George H.W. Bush was catalyst for the collapse of communism in Europe. No, much of the credit for both goes to their predecessors -- Reagan and George W. Bush -- though media meme of Obama taking office as basis for upheaval in Iran will surely take hold instead.

Just as Reagan was the pivotal figure in bringing down Iron Curtain, even though it did not occur until after Reagan left office, the younger Bush was pivotal in bringing down Iran Curtain, if that is what we are witnessing. And to carry analogy further, Obama is reacting with much the same caution as George H.W. Bush after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Obama at Normandy: Self-referential as usual

Can Obama get through a speech without gratuitous references to Dear Leader himself? Here he goes again, this time at Normandy in ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. After the obligatory nods to other dignitaries, Obama started his speech with this --

I'm not the first American president to come and mark this anniversary and I likely will not be the last.

How about that, gratuitous self-reference and banal. Then again, they often go together.

Here's how Reagan began his remarks 25 years earlier in the same place --

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty.

Listening to Obama's speeches and their inevitable turns of compass toward Self, I'm reminded of a book review of Hemingway's posthumous novel "The Garden of Eden" in 1986 by one of Hemingway's granddaughters, who made a wager with herself that Papa couldn't go a full page without mentioning an aperitif (she lost the bet, as I recall).

Guilty as charged

"Democrats may have nailed down the support of Hollywood, but Republicans love actors. In a period of intense Reagan nostalgia on the right (emphasis added), it makes sense that many would view (former US Senator and actor Fred) Thompson as someone to save them from an uninspiring field of presidential candidates"

-- from the "National Perspectives" column by Peter Canellos in today's Boston Globe, on Thompson possibly running for president.