Obama Then and Now: the Rashomon Effect (first in a series)

Roger’s Rules » Obama Then and Now: the Rashomon Effect (first in a series):
“Fundamentally transforming the United States of America” appeared to mean one thing in October 2008.  
It means something quite different now, in 2013. 
The words are the same, but the meaning has changed, changed utterly."
.....Obama’s statement from a speech about the future of America’s economy in September 2010:
"We can’t tell them [i.e., other nations], don’t grow. 
We can’t — drive our SUVs and you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on you know, 72 degrees at all times, and whether we’re living in the desert or we’re living in the tundra, and then just expect that every other country’s going say OK."

I know that that speech was widely criticized on the right back in 2010.
 But somehow it just slid down the memory hole.
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes [at] 72 degrees at all times and then just expect that every other country’s going say OK.”

How does that sound today? 
We can’t drive our cars, eat what we want, and heat our houses because other countries may not like it. 
That’s what the president of the United States said. 
“Other countries” tell Americans whether and what they can drive, eat, and to how warm or cool they can keep their houses.

It was meant to be a “Green” speech, a “leading-from-behind” speech, a speech that would reinforce the idea that America was not special, not “exceptional” (just as Obama, and now Vladimir Putin, said!), not in charge of its own destiny because, whatever advantages we enjoyed, “You didn’t build that.”

There is a species of the anti-American left, consisting of about 95 percent of the professoriate and miscellaneous other elements, who find such rhetoric inspiring.