BAM’S ON THE ATTACK — AGAINST AMERICA

PRESIDENT Obama may soon let the United Nations slap his own country for its Cuba embargo, which he dislikes.

Wait, what? Is this real, or a scene out of “Blazing Saddles”? Is Mel Brooks’ Sheriff Bart once again threatening to shoot himself in the head with a pistol if the townsfolk don’t drop the guns they have pointed at him?

Monday, Cuban President Raul Castro insisted in his UN speech that all of America’s decadesold economic sanctions against Cuba be lifted. Actually, Obama did, too. And Obama’s objections to US Cuba policy came in the context of yet more complaints about America by the president — with the world spotlight on him.

Once Obama’s new and improved ties to Cuba start to yield results, he said, “I’m confident” Congress will lift “an embargo that should not be in place anymore.” It was the most enthusiastically applauded line of his UN speech.

Cuba’s mouth is already watering: “I will wait for Oct. 27 to see what takes place,” the evidently hopeful Cuban foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, said Tuesday. He spoke to reporters after a chummy meeting and backslaps between Obama, Castro and their respective posses.

Perhaps Obama’s right. Now that’s he’s lifted all the restrictions he has the power to lift, maybe other branches of government will follow in his footsteps and end the more than halfcenturyold embargo, once and for all.

Fine. But for now, sanctions remain intact. And the world stage is not a place for an American leader to play out his domestic political agenda.

Castro told Obama “the pace of the normalization process will depend on lifting of the embargo,” according to Rodriguez. Therefore, he added, Cuba will present its annual Americabashing resolution at the General Assembly in a few weeks. “We’ll continue to present this resolution as long as the blockade persists,” he said. He even demanded compensation for Cuba’s suffering under the embargo.

Rodriguez referred to a resolution Cuba’s initiated at the Havanafriendly General Assembly every year since President John F. Kennedy established the embargo. In recent years, America found itself increasingly isolated, as all our allies, including Britain and the rest of Europe, joined Cuba in condemning us. Only Israel joined America last year in voting against that resolution.

But this year, our own amabassador reportedly might abstain from the vote. Senior American officials have so far declined to deny those reports, suggesting they may indeed be true.

No UN diplomats can remember a case in which a country voted against its own policies, or abstained on them.

Then again, few here can re member anyone using his UN speech to denounce his own countrymen or bash his domestic foes in front of other world leaders. These speeches, after all, are designed to present one’s country in the most favorable light.

Yet on Monday, that’s just what Obama did. Again.

Despite all the prosperity and peace his polices have led to, he said, some Americans still shamefully argue that “the only strength that matters for the United States is bellicose words and shows of military force.” And they’re guided by an absolute opposition to China, Russia, Iran or Islam.

He went on: Democracy in America is “imperfect. At times, it can even be dysfunctional.”

True, Obama also said that the fact that “not everybody in America agrees with me” is a positive feature of our democracy. But he has honed to perfection a habit of bashing on the world stage those Americans who disagree with him, past and present.

Indeed, this is hardly the first time Obama has belittled America’s “exceptionalism” or high lighted what he considers to be its shortcomings.

OK, on Cuba, Obama may be right that the embargo has outlived its usefulness. But again, it’s still the law of the land. Becoming the world’s first country to tacitly approve of a resolution that condemns its own policies is a strange way to force the hands of congressional opponents.

After escaping by threatening to shoot himself, Sheriff Bart goes to his office and says of the townfolk: “They are soooo dumb” for thinking he’d really shoot himself.

The trouble with Obama’s rhetorical selfattacks is: He means it. Twitter: @bennyavni

The trouble with Obama’s rhetorical self-attacks is: He means it.