Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop.
Probably. It's a sweet backdrop - who wouldn't?
The supporting cast -- a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins -- would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.
This I'm not so sure of. And who seeks "picturesque" foreign policy credentials? I imagine the following exchange:
"Mr. Obama, your foreign policy credentials are robust and impressive, but..."
"Yes"
"They're just not picturesque."
"I need fainting frauleins!"
What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Ronald Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation.
So, the Brandenburg Gate, like an Emmy, is something you earn - evidently by bringing an empire to its knees. Who determines who earns a Brandenburg?
And here I thought it was just a monument, next to an open space, that would provide a convenient place for many people to listen to a speaker. But no, you're right, it's more like a Nobel Prize, reserved for the most honored occasions. Someone tell these people. And Bill Clinton (who spoke there in 1994).
When President John F. Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.
Kennedy didn't speak at the Brandenburg Gate, he just "visited." You know who else visits the Brandenburg Gate when they pass through Berlin? Everyone.
Who is Obama representing?
Himself? Millions of American voters?
And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop?
Seriously? I don't know how to respond to this type of condescension. I'd just like to point to the fact that 72% of German citizens, you know, the people whose symbol you're ostensibly defending, want him to be President.
What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what George Bush the elder -- who presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall but modestly declined to go there for a victory lap -- called "a Europe whole and free"?
Nope, no role in the fall of Communism. Obama was 27 when the Berlin Wall fell - a little too young to have taken up arms against a sea of Communism. So, I guess no one can ever speak at the Brandenburg Gate again? Because this is the only issue that could ever unite Americans and Germans?
Does Obama not see the incongruity? It's as if a German pol took a campaign trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue for a campaign speech.
(The Germans have now gently nudged Obama into looking at other venues.)
By "The Germans" I presume Mr. Krauthammer means Chancellor Angela Merkel. Because Mayor Klaus Wowereit, whose decision this is, is happy for Obama to speak here. Most other Germans seem pretty psyched too.
Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself.And... now we're officially off topic.
There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president.
Wow, that must be frightening. Which ones? Fillmore? Wilson? Bartlett? Now, I'm interested.
Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?
This is too easy, and it seems to be the main point of this article. I'll just go with "yes."
Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times.
That's alot! Maybe... wait, how many total votes did he take? Oh, you don't know? Cool.
As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship?
Because Americans clamor for more academic, scholarly Presidents. I'm going to say editor of the HLR is evidence of better scholarship chops than most Presidential candidates.
Written a single memorable article?
I liked this one.
His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.
Pot shot. And sour grapes - when was your last best-seller, Chuck?
It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow."
From the MIT Energy Policy Blog:
"Obama - Has sponsored and referred to committee more than five bills in the past Congress, spanning topics from climate change to fuel standard increases, including one on providing incentives to the auto industry for advanced vehicle research (the sole authorship indicates that the candidate and his staff must actually have thought the bill up themselves, a good sign). McCain - Nothing. No sponsorships of anything related to energy or climate change in the past Congress.
How dare Obama associate his candidacy with slowing climate change!
As Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.
*Chuckles*
Obama may think he's King Canute,
I hope not...
but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.
After all, in the words of his own slogan, "we are the ones we've been waiting for," which, translating the royal "we," means: " I am the one we've been waiting for."
Wait, wait, wait. So, if Obama said something other than what he actually said, or, on the other hand, had delusions of royalty, it would have been really obnoxious. Okay...
Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal with its own Latin inscription affixed to his lectern, until general ridicule -- it was pointed out that he was not yet president -- induced him to take it down.
Remember, this article is ostensibly about Obama speaking at the Brandenburg Gate. Where were we again?
He lectures us that instead of worrying about immigrants learning English, "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish" -- a language Obama does not speak. He further admonishes us on how "embarrassing" it is that Europeans are multilingual but "we go over to Europe, and all we can say is 'merci beaucoup.' " Obama speaks no French.
Yes, this was awkward. Obama bent too far backwards to pander to a Hispanic audience. This doesn't strike me as vanity, however, just some pandering, a little insincerity and a cheap laugh. Remember, Mr. Krauthammer's point is that never has a Presidential candidate been as arrogant as Obama.
His fluent English does, however, feature many such admonitions, instructions and improvements. His wife assures us that
Switcharoo! From Obama's words to his wife's. But, fine, let's take them at face value. Do we, or do we not, want our Presidents to be moral leaders? Don't moral leaders demand things of their followers? If so, is this such a bad moral agenda? Working is a good old American value. Optimism would be a nice change. Engaging with others, involved and informed sound good to me, too...
For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?
The Democratic nominee for President?
We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more.
Obama occasionally sounds like a redeemer, again, is this such a bad thing? Lord of the seas? Let me know if Obama ever says he thinks he's "Lord of the seas." I would be concerned.
As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall -- I'm no expert on this -- Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick.
And proclaimed his divinity.
Obama operates on a larger canvas.
The hyperbolic grand finale!
