Berliners Welcome Obama As They Did JFK

Berliners Welcome Obama As They Did JFK

By Robert Marquand
Thu Jul 24, 5:00 AM ET

Berlin - The centerpiece of Barack Obama's overseas tour comes Thursday in Berlin when the Democratic presidential candidate gives the only public foreign policy speech of his trip to an Obama-mad crowd of Germans who see him as another John F. Kennedy. He's in a country and a continent making no secret it is ready for change.

"Germans have a great desire to see this as a historic moment," says Bastian Hermisson of the Heinrich Boll Foundation, who estimates that 100,000 will turn out for the speech. "His message that people can hope the world can change for the better – that resonates. The excitement is a sign that we still feel the US is a relevant force, an influence for better or worse."

On his much-scrutinized world jaunt to listen and learn, the Illinois senator is visiting a city at the heart of America's traditional alliance after visits to Afghanistan and Iraq, where the US-Europe relationship is most at risk for reasons of war, oil, and security.

Berlin, twice rebuilt in the 20th century, has symbolic significance, experts say – both for Europe's past and its future. Germany is regarded as the political epicenter of Europe, strategically located between East and West. America may cherish its relations with Paris and London, where Obama travels next, but to move Europe as a whole will require the next president to bolster ties with Berlin, experts say.

"In Berlin, his speech is to Europe, not just to Germany," says Dan Hamilton, director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington. "It used to be that for the US, the problems were Europe's divisions. Today, the challenge is unity. Berlin reflects this in a way no other city in Europe does."

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He's over there acting like he's the President right now. I even heard yesterday that this little turd has his White House transition team all picked out. My God... will somebody please kick this little twit in the ass and remind him he's just a junior senator with almost zero experience? Shheeeezzzuzzzz....

Let him have all that picked out. It'll only make that much sweeter when he wakes up the day after the election and sees the headline, "MCCAIN ELECTED PRESIDENT!" Then he'll get it that America saw through his charade and wanted more then his socialist bullshit.

The skuttle already is, people are beginning to suffer from obama burn-out. The overwhelming majority of people, liberal or not, realize the coverage of hussein is about as lop sided as a one leged man in an ass kickin' contest. People are sick of hearing about him. They're sick of seeing him, and we aren't even to the conventions. Funny thing about all this though.... it's *HELPING* McCain.

The thing is, for all the coverage he still hasn't delivered anything concrete. Just vague promises of change and words about hope. We got that last election from the Dems and they haven't done jackshit since. I do think that will factor into people's thinking come November.

King Leonidas wrote:The thing is, for all the coverage he still hasn't delivered anything concrete. Just vague promises of change and words about hope. We got that last election from the Dems and they haven't done jackshit since. I do think that will factor into people's thinking come November.

Absolutely. I think lots of his supporters by the time November rolls around will be asking themselves... "what in the HELL did I ever see in that twit?"

That line of thinking may prevail throughout all of the Democratic candidates as well. Hopefully America woke up from it's "Let's send a message" mood and realized that all we did was fuck ourselves over in the last election. Time to make corrections and get things back on track.