Friday, March 06, 2009

Ironies

Elaborating on the history of HMS Gannet, Ted Bromund explains:


The ironies here are wonderful, though Obama doesn't seem likely to appreciate them. Of course, the reference to the anti-slavery mission is a nod to Obama's fascination, fervent but not deep, with Abraham Lincoln.

But HMS Gannet was not, as a casual reader might guess, employed against the trade of slaves from Africa to the New World, and since it was built in 1878, it has nothing to do with Lincoln or slavery in the United States. It sailed the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, patrolling against Islamist slavers. In the Red Sea, the Africans it saved would have come, among other places, from Kenya. Obama has made mention of his grandfather's antipathy to Britain, stemming from his experiences in colonial Kenya. It is quite possible that grandfather's ancestors would, had it not been for the Royal Navy, have been carried away to slavery in Arabia.

Jules Crittenden asks whether Obama is "wicked, childish or dim.