WE AREN'T THE WORLD, DAGNABBIT!

National Review's Byron York:

It's a small passage from Obama's Berlin speech, but this formulation, common in some circles, grates on some ears, like mine:

The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil.

Yes, the victims were from all over the globe -- places like Brooklyn, and the Bronx, and Manhattan, and Queens, and Staten Island, and New Jersey -- all over. And most were Americans, weren't they? Wasn't that the point of the attack? ...

Yeah, that's an appalling Obama statement.

In fact, it's almost as appalling as this:

Among the many innocent victims of September 11th were hundreds of citizens from over 90 countries....

The attacks of September 11th were the worst assault on the American homeland in our country's history, but they were more than that. They were an attack on the universal ideals of peace and liberty and human rights that civilized nations like ours embody and strive to uphold. The September 11th attacks were not only an attack on our people, but also on the noblest aspirations of all people.

What kind of globalist "Kumbaya"-singing liberal would have said something like that?

Oh, wait -- that was Condi Rice, on the fifth anniversary of the attacks.

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(Via Steve Benen.)

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UPDATE: Another Birkenstock-wearing hippie made similar remarks on 9/20/01:

Nor will we forget the citizens of 80 other nations who died with our own: dozens of Pakistanis; more than 130 Israelis; more than 250 citizens of India; men and women from El Salvador, Iran, Mexico and Japan; and hundreds of British citizens.

That hippie was Condi's boss.