BERLIN - Barack Obama may be itching to tell the world ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ in the same city that fell in love with John F. Kennedy for his famous 1963 address to frightened West Berliners in freedom’s most famous outpost.
But Obama’s possible trip to the German capital later this month has provoked a German domestic free-for-all — drawing page one headlines and putting new strains on the governing coalition.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany’s No. 1 conservative, sent her spokesman out on Wednesday to say she’s against any “electioneering” in Berlin, while Vice Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, leaders from the center-left Social Democrats, said the exact opposite — that Obama would be warmly welcomed to speak in the German capital.
From the protocol perspective, Merkel has no say about who visits or speaks at the Brandenburg Gate — it’s the Berlin’s mayor decision. Neither does Steinmeier, who is the SPD’s likely candidate to run against Merkel in next year’s federal election.
So it’s remarkable that the two German heavyweights have waded into the debate with their different points of view on Obama.
Their disagreement surfaced in a tense government news conference Wednesday in Berlin where the respective spokesmen openly contradicted each other
Obama reportedly wants to come to the heart of Berlin — just a few weeks after the 60th anniversary of the U.S.-led Air Lift — while U.S. President George W. Bush spent only a few brief minutes in Berlin airport getting off his plane and into his helicopter on a two-day visit with Merkel to an isolated village 60 miles north of Berlin.
Bush never returned to Berlin after facing 10,000 anti-war protesters on his one visit to the German capital in 2002. Still very unpopular in Germany, Bush went to the provinces on his four other trips. A German opinion poll, showed recently that Obama would win 72 percent of the vote in Germany if Germans could vote in the U.S. election.
Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.
Photo credit: Top: Reuters/Tami Chappell (Obama speaks in Georgia on Tuesday) ; Bottom: Reuters/Ho New (Merkel with Bush at G8 meeting on Wednesday)
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It is presumed, Mr. & Mrs. Reader, that Mr. Obama would like to emulate President Kennedy’s call for freedom should he visit Berlin. However, Berlin is free now…and likewise all of Germany (well, as free as Germany can be, I guess).
What Mr. Obama really ought to be doing is standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol building and repudiating his vote of today for the amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (H.R. 6304). Instead of being amended, the act should have been repealed.
Said another way, Mr. Obama should be calling for the removal of unconstitutional infringements on the freedoms, rights & privileges of his fellow Americans by both the FISA Act of 1978 and its new and seemingly innocuous amendment. Neither Mrs. Pelosi nor Mr. Reid have anything to brag about in this regard either…unless I guess you ask them their opinion of themselves.
Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Kerry voted against the bill. Mr. McCain did not vote (likewise Messrs. Kennedy & Sessions). Below is the roll call of the nays, i.e., the senators who voted to protect our precious freedoms, rights & privileges as stipulated in the Bill of Rights, to wit:
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Akaka (D-HI)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Murray (D-WA)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Wyden (D-OR)
Just what could the yeas be thinking? I don’t get it.
Mr. Feingold (a nay) tried to explain what happened in an interview on cable today. He seemed deeply saddened by it all. He seems to think that Mr. Obama (once elected to the presidency) will somehow turn around and repudiate his vote of today by asking Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Reid to lead the house of representatives and the senate in “fixing” today’s mistake. Personally, I think that Mr. Feingold is dreaming on this one.
OK Jack
- Posted by OK JackDer Spiegal has the following:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/worl d/0,1518,565080,00.html
And the German government isn’t just reacting out of respect for Bush during the twilight of his presidency, as some reports have alleged. The respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported this week that a member of the Bush delegation approached Merkel’s foreign policy advisor, Christoph Heusgen, at the G-8 summit in Japan to discuss misgivings about Obama’s planned speech.
This is just another Rove dirty trick.
- Posted by Dick Tuck