I must have watched a different speech by Barack Obama in Berlin on Wednesday, judging from the as-always fawning coverage by the MSM here and here.  The speech I watched had hints of blame-America-first: 

As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya. 

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions. 

The latter lines drawing applause that seemed to embarrass even Obama, who tried to push on through to point out how much he loves America—despite its all-too-obvious deficiencies.           

And Obama made sure to reassure Germans he had none of that American Exceptionalism nonsense floating around in his psyche. His description of the Berlin airlift gave the impression that the decision to send food to starving Berliners at the beginning of the Cold War was some sort of equal partnership between the beneficiaries on the ground and their American saviors:

Look at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the field of battle.

Of course Obama had to tread carefully, I suppose.  Whether the French, whom we liberated, or the Germans, whom we vanquished and then helped to rebuild their economy and restore democracy, Europeans have never been particularly thankful for our help.  Perhaps that’s why early in the speech, the crowd gave such disparate response to Obama’s invocation of his family roots.  When Obama mentioned, as he always does, his mother who “was born in the heartland of America,” there was no response, but he drew cheers, even ululations, at the line about the other half of his family (about 50 seconds into the video): 

my father grew up herding goats in Kenya. His father – my grandfather – was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.

No doubt if the election were being held across the pond, Obama would win hands down.  But before Obama starts ordering new curtains for the Oval Office, he should ask President Kerry how much help European enthusiasm was in his election. 

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 9:22 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.