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Obama in Berlin
July 25, 2008
I thought his speech was disappointing. He played it very safe. What he said was insubstantial even by his standards, and sometimes painfully banal. And it seemed to me to lack the flair in delivery that usually makes up the deficit. There were no memorable lines. All that stuff about tearing down (metaphorical) walls was predictable and lame. It was a mistake to evoke memories of “Tear down this wall,” an unrepeatably dramatic stroke. And who thought it was a good idea to recycle “This is the moment”? Old hat by now in the US and entirely without resonance in Germany. He seemed subdued and a little nervous, too, which would be understandable, since it is difficult to please two such different audiences–the one in Berlin, and the one back home–at the same time.
Speaking at home, a favourite device is to challenge his listeners a little (as recently, when he reminded a teachers’ union that he supports merit pay and charter schools). There was a smidgen of that in Berlin–he called on Europe to increase its support for US efforts in Afghanistan–but no more, most likely because he did not know the audience well enough to be confident about getting the balance right.
For what it’s worth, Der Spiegel was none too impressed.
The images of the cheering crowd–200,000 was a decent turn-out, I’d say–are a great plus of course. And he avoided the main mistake he might have made, so far as American voters are concerned: there was no pandering to anti-American sentiment, and almost none to anti-Bush sentiment. At one point, the reference to Iraq, the crowd was about to get behind that feeling and he stifled it. This denied him the roars of adulation which were there for the taking, but which would have dealt him a serious and possibly lethal blow back home. So it was steady, but dull.
How long, one wonders, will Germany stay in love with Obama if he is elected? My guess is not long. The real question, once America’s and Europe’s diverging interests start to be asserted, is whether his Euro-fans will feel mildly let down or outrageously betrayed. See this piece by David Aaronovitch, “Eventually, we will all hate Obama too“.
So Barack Obama, en fête around the world, will one day learn that there is no magical cure for the envy of others. What makes America the indispensable power (and even more indispensable in the era of the new China), is precisely what makes anti-Americanism inevitable.
Unfortunately, I think Aaronovitch is right.
There are some fine phrases, but I am disappointed overall.
Obama, sadly, felt the need to emphasize his American identity and his love of country.
What else could he be but American? He comes as an American candidate. He sounds like an American. He talks from an American perspective. He didn’t need this weak, saccharine-flavored emphasis.
As far as the love of country, hasn’t the world had enough of American jingoism?
It has been nothing but a source of pain and injury to others, death and destruction on a rather massive scale from the holocaust in Vietnam to the destruction of Iraq.
And there is something painfully embarrassing about the need to tell crowds you love your country. It really reminds me of the urges of Fundamentalist Christians to declare their love of the Lord.
That Puritan strain seems to drench, almost like cheap cologne, much of America’s communications, from info-mercials for mops to policy speeches abroad.
Do other foreign leaders come to America and make featured speeches about their love of Britain or France or China?
At least he spared us a team of baton-twirling girls in red, white, and blue sequined panties.
Obama’s line about finding the future for the children was ghastly stuff. Where do you hide a future?
Posted by: JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO | July 25th, 2008 at 1:48 pm | Report this commentOn an issue of substance, more troops to Afghanistan, Ms Merkel has already told him no.
Europeans for the most part understand the futility of this American crusade.
And I do think it inevitable that Obama disappoint Europeans, although there will never be the intense antipathy George Bush invites with every utterance.
The Americanism stuff in Berlin only suggests how difficult, almost impossible, it is to be truly different at the top of American politics.
There is a large group of very wealthy and powerful people whose views drive American policy. They have interests in keeping a conservative state at home and an aggressive imperial force abroad.
Pesidents come and go, and anyone abroad who thinks they have the power to greatly shift the emphasis of America simply do not understand the country.
Posted by: JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO | July 25th, 2008 at 2:01 pm | Report this commentI hate to be rude to our friends in Europe, but does it really matter all that much what Obama or any other US candidate says there? Not that Europe’s more responsible, humanistic capitalism fails to compare favorably with the American, wealthy corporate elite take all variety (see today’s FT oped columns by Joseph Stiglitz and John Thornhill), but the world’s center of gravity is shifting to the East, as we all know.
When JFK and RR spoke in Berlin, that city was critically important in the world’s struggle between freedom and totalitarianism. Now…
And what about the global South? I am certainly an Obama supporter, but I didn’t watch his Berlin speech. If he makes one in Nairobi, Jakarta, or Sao Paulo, however, that should be something well worth following.
Posted by: algasema | July 25th, 2008 at 2:07 pm | Report this commentI may be losing my mind, but I have to agree with Chuckman’s statement “Do other foreign leaders come to America and make featured speeches about their love of Britain or France or China?”
Thankfully he takes me back to reality with the bizarre conspiracy that “There is a large group of very wealthy and powerful people whose views drive American policy.” which seems odd, given the left-wing fueling of George Soros, Penny Pritzker, Warren Buffet etc.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | July 25th, 2008 at 2:54 pm | Report this commentBased on all accounts, there does not seem to have been much substance to Obama’s speech. What are his campaign managers doing to him? The man who started as one of America’s most exciting, principled candidates in a long time may now be turning into just another mediocre politician.
If Obama continues moving to the right, what will be next? Another Guantanamo? A bigger border fence? More corporate welfare and laissez-faire for the Robber Barons who are destroying our economy? More trillions for the military? 200 years in Iraq?
I am watching John Powers’ posts very carefully. If he ever says anything complementary about Obama, I may just do the unthinkable and vote for Ralph Nader. Fortunately, there is not much danger of that.
Posted by: algasema | July 25th, 2008 at 3:12 pm | Report this commentalgasema writes: “there does not seem to have been much substance to Obama’s speech.”
There does not seem to be much substance to Obama. Good morning America.
I would like to venture a prediction that, contrary to all the odds, McCain will win this election. Ironically, the preferential media coverage Obama is receiving is doing McCain good. That way Americans are given the chance to see for themselves: there is no there there. This is something that will be become clearer as the campaign rolls on.
Posted by: RCS | July 25th, 2008 at 3:37 pm | Report this commentRoger,
His house looked really nice in People Magazine this week.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | July 25th, 2008 at 4:15 pm | Report this commentRe more German troops to Afghanistan. Ms Merkel already said quite some time ago that she would send another 1′000 troops to Afghanistan. Since when, if the topic is brought up again (and it does sometimes get on TV) she says that she has already said she would send 1 000 troops to Afghanistan. Punkt?
Posted by: J.J. | July 25th, 2008 at 5:08 pm | Report this commentJohn Powers, does this compliment for Obama mean that if he loses my vote, he will gain yours?
Posted by: algasema | July 25th, 2008 at 5:43 pm | Report this commentI will vote in approval of his choice of architects. George Maher, I think. Please correct me if I am wrong, just going by the stye of house and time and status of construction.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | July 25th, 2008 at 8:44 pm | Report this comment“I would like to venture a prediction that, contrary to all the odds, McCain will win this election.”
If Senator McCain wins, it will be purely the result of sadly lingering racism among older white males. Note the results of a recent poll of voters in four important States as reported in the WSJ that show that Senator McCain leads among white males over 35 years of age by 10 percentage points, while Senator Obama leads overall. There is a companion article in the WSJ that I think summarizes voter attitudes that warrants citing.
<<While the Illinois senator was capturing Europe’s attention, here at the Newton County Fair in western Indiana corn country, the Democratic contender’s jaunt got mixed reviews.
“The Europeans look at us as being fat, lazy and useless,” said Roger Saxon, a Republican member of the Newton County Council standing next to the John Deere tractor exhibit. “I don’t care who they think we should elect president.”
Fewer than 100 feet away near a kettle-corn stand, Rebecca Collard, a retired chef and waitress who plans to vote for Sen. Obama, took a different view.
“We’ve become a nation people are afraid of, instead of one that people look up to,” said Mrs. Collard, squinting past the late-day sun. “It’s like we’ve become the terrorists we’re supposed to be fighting.”While the Illinois senator was capturing Europe’s attention, here at the Newton County Fair in western Indiana corn country, the Democratic contender’s jaunt got mixed reviews.
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No interpretation needed. I heard snippets of Senator Obama’s speech in Berlin. I watched and listened to the press conference that Senator Obama gave with President Sarkozy however. I thought Senator Obama answered questions superbly and was visibly thankful and gracious to his guest in constantly deferring responses to President Sarkozy after he finished responding to a question directly at him.
No question that Senator Obama’s policy positions are middle of the road and conventional, but he clearly is extremely bright, open-minded, apparently a careful listener and unbeholden to any particular interest group, a significant contrast to Senator McCain’s characteristics and support.
His visceral appeal is also unquestionably his embodiment of the anti-George Bush and anti-Richard Cheney from virtually any perspective - a welcome relief for most people in the world whatever his policies.
One final note is a reference by another FT columnist of the work of Drew Westen on voter decision-making which I think is accurate. To quote the columnist’s reference:
<>
This correctly points out the danger to Senator Obama of straying too far from the “rally ’round the flag” rhetoric on his trip, no matter how distasteful to those who expect more from him.
Posted by: Wendell Murray | July 26th, 2008 at 12:24 pm | Report this commentWM,
I note a theme among Leftwing Pot-stirrers that to oppose Sen. Obama is to be racist.
I suppose to oppose Michael Dukakis was to be anti-Greek. To oppose George McGovern was to be anti-Methodist. To oppose Gene McCarthy, anti-ex-Benedictine Monk. To oppose John Kerry anti-anti-war protester.
Given that Sen. Obama has generated a laundry list of reasons to oppose him, can’t you pick one of the top 100 reasons to oppose him, before being charged with a very unlikely -ism?
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | July 26th, 2008 at 4:34 pm | Report this commentWhenever Ms Merkel is asked to send more troops to Afghanistan, she repeats what she has said in the past more than once “I have already promised to send 1 000 troops”.
After Obama left Berlin, there was comment on German TV, with general approval for his focus on the environment and reducing emissions and his preference for consultation and cooperation i/o confrontation in foreign affairs. But if he becomes president, Obama “has to walk the talk” was one comment.
Posted by: J.J. | July 26th, 2008 at 5:13 pm | Report this commentA German parliamentarian summed up GWB’s foreign policy as follows: “Multilateralism? As much as is possible. Unilateralism? As much as is necessary”.
Mr. JBP: My comment has nothing to do with left-wingism, simply an observation. The citation of Drew Westen did not appear in my earlier comment, but in essence he contends that right-wing Republicans have consistently succeeded in national elections at least since the Reagan era by appealing to the voters’ gut feelings irrespective of the policy positions of the candidates or more precisely even when the policy positions of extreme right-wingers are at odds with the economic and many other interests of those who vote for them. I agree with Prof. Westen. That is the reason for the continuing appeals, overt and covert, made to lingering racism among whites in the South. There is little question about that.
Now, with a candidate himself who is bi-racial although considered black as a result, the racial issue is much more direct. The citation from the WSJ article epitomizes the attitude of many older white males - as opposed to white females of otherwise similar characteristics - who simply cannot adapt to changes in power due to changing demographics and to less racist or sexist attitudes in general. These changes lessen the hold of right-wing to middle-of-the-road whtie male office-holders or corporate executives or anyone else in positions of power. This is an obvious fact both about human nature and about the current voter demography that only right-wing ideologues are blind to.
Posted by: Wendell Murray | July 27th, 2008 at 1:17 pm | Report this commentHmm..the Democrats had close to a monopoly on Jim Crow politics for 100+ years, and to this day puruse an anti-black, anti-immigrant agenda in housing, education, and zoning issues (go try to find fresh fruit at a market in Sen. Obama’s neighborhood)
I can and do talk to any number of blacks who know that Sen. Obama has been a seriously lacking leader in his own Ward, the state of Illinois, and the US Senate.
The charge of racism is just bewildering when there are so many other reasons to oppose this guy.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | July 27th, 2008 at 3:05 pm | Report this commentMr Murray,
If race were the issue, I would support Obama. It is high time America had an African-American as president (or, for that matter, one that was not male and WASP). In such a diverse population, many groups need to seem to be represented.
Too bad Colin Powell is not running.
Posted by: RCS | July 27th, 2008 at 5:05 pm | Report this commentThe possibility is exciting — the first African-American president –therefore voters should resist the temptation. McCain is the better candidate.
The French did the same when they spurned Segolene Royal in favour of Sarkozy. Interestingly there are many parallels: like Obama, she presented an antractive moderate face. But the French understood that running a country is no showbiz. Things need to get done. America has suffered enough with one Carter.
Posted by: RCS | July 27th, 2008 at 5:18 pm | Report this commentBravo again to Wendell Murray, who has put his finger on what motivates so many American voters to vote against their own economic interests and has accurately explained why far right radicals (Reagan included) have kept getting elected for so long.
RCS, I could not disagree with you more. A candidate’s race is not a good reason to vote for or against him (or her) for any office. John Powers will most likely argue that the 92% of African-American voters who supported Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton evidently disagree with this statement. That doesn’t make it false.
Look at one prominent African-American who was elevated to high office in large part because of his race, namely Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. With all due respect to his position, the number of people who would call him a distinguished jurist, even among those who agree with his far right wing views, is not very large, to say the least.
John Powers, it is fine to make sweeping statements about how the Democrats are supposedly pursuing an anti-black, anti-immigrant agenda, but this will certainly not add to the credibility of your comments in general. Yes, of course there are some anti-black, anti-immigrant Democrats. Racism and nativism are not bound by party lines.
But, if what you are saying has even a shred of truth, why is the South today so solidly Republican, with the only Democratic Congressmen coming from gerrymandered black districts?
Could this just possibly have anything to do with the anti-black “Southern Strategy” that originated in the Nixon years, as a backlash to the civil rights legislation passed by Democrats during under Lyndon Johnson? Johnson, it should be remembered, famously said that by signing the Voting Rights Act and many other laws aimed at ending discrimination against African-Americans, he was handing the South over to the Republicans for at least a generation. It is now closer to two generations. Who can possibly say that Johnson’s prediction was anything less than 100% accurate?
Your attempt to rewrite immigration reality to claim that the Democrats, not the Republicans, are the anti-immigrant party, is even more ludicrous, and is inexcusable, because this involves very recent history, not events dating back 40 years.
In late 2005, the Republican House of Representatives passed a sweeping immigration enforcement bill (H.R. 3447, if I remember my numbers correctly) sponsored by Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, at that time chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
This bill was widely denounced by nearly all immigration experts as one of the most draconian anti- immigration proposals ever considered by Congress. Among many, many other proposals to restrict immigration, the bill would have made it a felony, punishable by a up to five years in prison, to overstay one’s visa in the US by even one day, or to violate even the most trivial and technical immigration regulation.
In addition, any person, including a US citizen, who gave any vaguely defined “assistance” to anyone in violation of one of the these regulations, which are almost as numerous and complex as the Internal Revenue Code, would also have been guilty of a felony.
This bill, which many compared with the Chinese Exclusion laws of 100 years ago (though the Sensenbrenner bill was actually even worse in many respects) was passed with overwhelming Republican support. The only opposition came from Democrats, who were not even permitted to participate in committee deliberations.
This bill, which of course died when the Democrats took over Congress after the 2006, was the result of relentless anti-immigrant pressure by Republican anti-immigrant Congressional figures, such as Congressmen Tom Tancredo and Brian Bilbray, among many others.
As one can easily see just from reading Congressman Tancredo’s website, for example, these far right Republicans are not just against illegal immigration, but want to restrict all immigration, especially by Hispanics.
Democrats, to be sure, may be all over the place on immigration, but are generally far more pro-immigrant, as you will find out this fall when the Hispanic votes are counted, if you are not already aware of what the rest of the country has known for a long time.
Posted by: algasema | July 27th, 2008 at 9:03 pm | Report this commentCorrection: Instead of saying “when the Hispanic votes are counted”, I should have said “if the Hispanic votes are counted”.
Some 20 states, all of them with Republican legislatures, have passed strict voter ID laws making it more difficult for minorities, the elderly and the poor, who typically have a harder time obtaining ID documents than more affluent whites, to vote. These laws were bitterly opposed by Democrats, but at least one of them, in Indiana, has been upheld by the radical right wing Republicans on the Supreme Court (with the help of the more moderate Republican Justice Kennedy).
Under the disgraced Republican former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the blatantly politicized Justice Department made “voter fraud” a top priority, launching baseless criminal investigations against voter registration groups trying to help minorities register and vote in the coming election.
Republican-dominated state legislatures, especially, in crucial swing states such as Florida, have passed so many restrictions against these groups that many of them have had to cease operations.
Inevitably, the Republican party is becoming even more of shat it has already been for quite some time - namely the White Man’s party.
One additional thought: John Powers seems surprised that prejudice could possibly have anything to do with attitudes of some voters who oppose Obama. Of course, it would be absurd to say that everyone who supports McCain is prejudiced against black candidates. JBP is quite right in saying that many voters, no doubt the great majority, will make their decisions on the base of issues, not race. I totally agree.
But it is also true that almost 20% per cent of Americans, by some estimates, still think that Obama is Muslim. This is not because the information that Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim, is not out there and widely available to everyone. Of course it is.
But it means that a large percentage of voters simply refuse to accept the truth about Obama’s religious affiliation. There is a word for this. It is called prejudice, whether racial or otherwise.
Posted by: algasema | July 27th, 2008 at 9:51 pm | Report this commentI am very sorry for my careless typo: I meant “what it has already been, not “shat it has already been”, in my sentence about the Republican party. My deep apologies.
Posted by: algasema | July 27th, 2008 at 9:55 pm | Report this commentRoger,
Bush and McCain were in favor of immigration reform the last time around, Obama was against it (to an extent).
I’ll only comment on the Cook County Democrats, who have a stranglehold on public schools that deliver prison quality experience to students, in one of the most racist systems ever devised.
Students at many public have schools, *gasp*, even in Sen. Obama’s neighborhood have a far better chance of incarceration than getting a college degree, all thanks to the Democratic Party and the Teachers Unions.
With no intentions whatsoever of education reform, and a huge amount of disapproval from the African American clientle, I fail to see how the Democratic party is somehow magically is absolved from its wretched history of racism.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | July 28th, 2008 at 12:06 am | Report this commentJohn Powers, I have no knowledge of Cook County any longer, no longer having any family ties there, so I will accept everything you say about the Democratic machine there as true. Sounds like the old “limousine liberals” we had at one time in New York (or may still have) who talked a good game on race relations but did nothing for the African-American community.
I will not even mention Rudy Giuliani, who was certainly not a limousine liberal, never even tried to talk a good game on race relations as Mayor, and had terrible relations with minorities because of his unwavering support of police officers who killed or tortured innocent black suspects.
As for McCain’s and Bush’s support of immigration reform, it was as welcome as it was courageous and bipartisan. McCain’s co-sponsor of the failed Senate “amnesty” bill, after all, was Ted Kennedy, who was a liberal Democrat last time I checked. Obama and Hillary Clinton both, of course, also voted for the bill.
However, McCain has now completely backtracked under pressure from his party’s vocal and powerful right wing, and stated repeatedly that he no longer supports immigration reform until the Mexican border is “secure”, This is exactly the position that Tom Tancredo and his anti-immigrant supporters on the Republican right have taken all along, because everyone knows that they will never regard the border as “secure”, as long as one single Mexican is able to enter the US legally or illegally.
So, in McCain’s case, his basic decency has given way to expediency. Bush’s case is even worse. He courageously took on his own party last year on immigration, as I wrote in a print edition FT letter at the time.
However, after the failure of the Senate bill, the administration backtracked and is now supporting an “enforcement only” policy against illegal immigrants that is severe enough even to win occasional praise from Lou Dobbs, who may technically be a Democrat himself, but whose show is now America’s leading vehicle for right wing anti-immigrant Republicans, who appear on it regularly.
What is even less comprehensible is that that the Bush administration has adopted a number of regulations making certain types of widely used legal visas and green cards much harder to obtain. This has nothing to do with enforcing the law against illegals. It is just a sop to Republican right wingers who are against all immigration, mainly for racial reasons.
Having said this, I expect Obama to move to the right on immigration, consistent with the misguided advice he is getting from his campaign managers to try to become “McCain lite” (and I am referring of course to Obama’s positions, not his ethnic background). This, I believe, is a guaranteed way for Obama to lose the election to one of the most lackluster, disoriented and expediency -driven candidates that even the Republicans have managed to nominate for president in a very long time.
Posted by: algasema | July 28th, 2008 at 1:55 am | Report this commentThis rather reminds me of those black and white Pathe newsreels showing King George or Edward giving out school books to grateful African children.
The point was not to impress the locals on the virtues of education and hard work, but, to project an image of the kind loving King/Emporer to the adoring subjects back in England.
It does not bode well for his foriegn policy that Obama’s speech in Berlin was addressed soley to the voters back home. The Germans are pretty thick skinned about this sort of thing but I would advise him not to try this in Paris.
Posted by: James Anderson | July 28th, 2008 at 3:15 pm | Report this comment