National Post, Canada
Aug 17 2008

Full Comment in Briefs: We’re all Nagorno-Karabakhians now

Posted: August 16, 2008, 10:00 AM by Kelly McParland
Full Comment, Kelly McParland

By Kelly McParland

John McCain, feeling his oats, announced the other day that `we are
all Georgians’ now.

Georgia was under attack by Russian troops, you see, and since we’re
supposed to sympathize with them, that makes us all Georgians.

It may not surprise you to know that this is not the first time we’ve
all had our identities changed by a politician in the throes of
oratory. John F. Kennedy famously declared himself a Berliner on a
visit to the city. Ronald Reagan went a step further, declaring:
`Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German,
separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look
upon a scar.’

Reagan liked the line, which he had used earlier in another variation,
declaring `In this profound sense, we are all Americans,’ in a 1982
speech referring to two dozen countries in and around the Caribbean. A
similar line, `Today we are all Americans’ was widely used by
U.S. allies after 9/11, including in a statement by Israel’s Benjamin
Netanyahu.

So we’re all Georgians, we’re all Berliners and we’re all Americans. I
just hope no one attacks Nagorno-Karabakh. I don’t think I could fit
it on my passport.

Photo, above: Ronald Reagan at the Berlin Wall in September, 1990
(REUTERS/Michael Probst/Files)

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