Reading Sandy Banks' column in the L.A. Times we are supposed to feel optimistic. But, instead of optimism, all one can see is complaints about the USA coming from the immigrants in Washington D.C. that Banks ran across during her inaugural week visit. Instead of uplift, we see Banks celebrating the fact that these people feel that the USA is a bad place, has failed them, or is not what it's cracked up to be. So, where is the "profound message" that Banks found in DC?

Why it's that these same immigrants think Obama will remake the US into something better for them, naturally. You see, Banks agrees with these immigrants that the USA is a bad place and that The One will wipe away our sins and re-invent this nation into something it wasn't. Banks isn't celebrating the USA with her "profound message" but celebrating its recreation into something different.

Banks writes of the hard working fellows she found in DC as she visited the capitol to partake in the inaugural festivities there. Banks gives us the tales of "Abass from Afghanistan. Mohammed from Israel. Kofi from Ghana. Abdel from Morocco." Three of these four Muslim immigrants don't seem quite as happy to be here as she tries to make it seem.

Abass Murshaidi fled from Afghanistan as a child and emigrated to Pakistan. He spent years learning English and writing letters to US officials to be favored with a visa so that he might come to the USA. He finally made it and took up cab driving in DC and that is where Banks discovered him.

So, is he grateful for his fortune? Maybe a tiny bit. But, he couldn't help telling Banks that he "still broods over the years he lost in Pakistan -- unable to work, attend school, see his family." To him Barack Obama is "a gift to my children. They can grow up to be anything they want to be. Here, now, I really believe it."

So, he didn't believe it before Obama came along as he harbored that "brooding" grudge at this country for not letting him come in from a terror exporting nation sooner?

This man has been sold a bill of goods if he truly believes that only Obama has made this country a place of opportunity.

Sadly, Banks obviously agrees with this premise or else Murshaidi's words would not seem to be a "profound message."

Next Banks sat in Mohammed's cab. She calls him a "tough-talking native of Jerusalem," and his "tough-talk" consisted of telling Banks that we are hated throughout the world.

He let me know how battered our reputation abroad has been. "Outside of the U.S, you were hated. . . . for your arrogance and bullying. Now, I'm picking up people at the airport from Europe and they are smiling, celebrating.

"This is more important to them than to you," he told me. This is America redeemed. "All over the world. It changes everything."

These people Mohammed is happy for obviously expect Obama to be on their side, not the side of the American people and its interests. Banks must agree with this point, too. Remember, this is all "profound."

Banks next encountered Kofi from Ghana. Kofi seemed the only one that wasn't first with the complaints about how awful it is here or still holding any old grudges. Good for Kofi, and welcome to the USA.

Naturally, Banks only has two very short paragraphs for the good Kofi!

Finally, Banks hailed the cab of one Abdel Lamar from Morocco. For his part, Abdel thinks it isn't possible to "make a success" in the USA.

"I hear all the stories from people who came to this country 30 years ago, when it was easy to make a success," he said. "Now, you work hard but don't seem to make any progress.

Nice. You can always go home, Abdel.

Granted, each of these folks that Banks encountered driving her about DC professed to be happy to be here. But, complaints were the first things out of their mouths. And Banks was happy to give them voice because she too seems to think that things are bad here. She admits that she sees the USA "through a prism of injustice" because blacks were once enslaved here 150 years ago.

But, Banks finds one thing to agree upon with her grumbling immigrant service providers. Like them, she imagines that President Barack Obama will make this country anew. After all, he has too. What it currently is sucks... just ask her.

Sadly, Banks appears to be another one of those liberals that does not love America but for what it actually is but only for what they want it to become. And all of this, to Banks, is what qualifies as “profound.”

(Photo credit: nlgja.org)