Thanks so much all for reading and commenting. Allow me to clarify a few points:
1. There is nothing wrong with learning another language, but Obama should not be looking down on his own people should they choose not to do so.
2. Given his position, Obama should realize that French is the last language an American should learn in 2008. The other languages I mentioned are more pertinent in light of current affairs.
3. Obama is a hypocrite in lieu of his monolingual status and his contempt reveals that he sees the citizenry as wards.
4. Something overlooked here is that there is an opportunity cost to learning a new language –particularly if you’re in your late 30s as am I. I read about 70 to 100 books a year and this habit would promptly end if I acquired Spanish. It’s labor intensive and would automatically eliminate the time I had to study other topics (unless I suddenly win the lotto lol).
4. Some of us, myself included, resent being automatically disqualified from employment as a result of not being bilingual. In our view, the country should not change in a way that results in discrimination against those who are native born.
5. Lastly, France lost in 1940 as a result of cultural and characterological collapse along with dismal military leadership. France had the strongest army in the world throughout most of the 30s, and had they assumed a more aggressive posture they could have assured stalemate or at least destroyed most of Hitler’s industrial base in September of 1939. They refused to bomb his munitions factories and would not even bomb the endless columns of tanks he assembled in the Ardennes in the days before they were assailed. Further, mentioning other countries–even England!–in the context of that land battle is a red herring. The British Expeditionary Force was comprised of 200,000 men; whereas, the French had nearly 6 million at their disposal. They had just as many tanks as the Germans but did not deploy them correctly so it was France’s battle to lose and they duly lost it. Ernest R. May’s “Strange Victory” is an excellent account of the conflict’s dynamics. May illustrates that most of the elite French units saw no or little fighting due to improper placement by Gamelin and a refusal to create a strategic reserve. Reynaud conceded defeat to Churchill on the phone 5 days in.
