Posted on 07/06/2008 1:42:11 PM PDT by Josh Painter
Word is out that Barack Obama and his campaign's brain trust are thinking of staging the most audacious photo op in American political history. But this one will take place on German, not American, soil:
Democratic US presidential candidate Barack Obama has requested permission to give an address at the Brandenburg Gate when he visits Berlin later this month, according to German media reports.The four-paragraph story from the German media doesn't even mention it, but two other American presidents made memorable visits to the Berlin Wall.If permission is granted, the address would be loaded with historical significance. The Brandenburg Gate is where former US President Ronald Regan gave a famous speech in 1987, during which he asked then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall.
In 1963, when President John F. Kennedy visited the Gate, the Soviets hung large banners across it so he could not see the East Berlin side. JFK's tour of Berlin is described in Kenny O'Donnel's memoir of his late boss, Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye:
When President Kennedy stopped to look at the Brandenburg Gate, a guard handed him a bouquet of flowers that had been thrown over the Wall with a note asking that it be given to him. Later, when we stopped at Checkpoint Charlie, the American-controlled gate to East Germany, a small group of East Berliners beyond the gate waved and cheered him.On July 12, 1994 President Bill Clinton addressed a speech to the people of Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate, talking mainly about peace in post-Cold War Europe. Though Clinton was well-liked in Germany and his speech well-received by Berliners, it was not the history-making stuff of the addresses given by Kennedy and Reagan.In West Berlin he made a forty-mile tour of the city, thrilled by the sight of the biggest crowds he had ever seen anywhere. It was said that more than half of West Berlin's two and a third million people were in the streets that day, lined up four deep along his route and crowding every window and rooftop. The square outside of the City Hall, when he delivered his famous speech of challenge to the Communist world, was jammed solidly as far as he could see in every direction by a tightly crowded mass of people, chanting steadily "Ken-ah-dee! and shouting a roar of approval when he repeatedly punctuated his thrusts at compromising appeasers ... with the resounding refrain, "Let-- them-- come-- to-- Berlin!" The crowd was swept by a surge of pride and warmth, and deeply stirred as few such massive audiences in history have ever been moved, by Kennedy's opening and closing words. A German government official told us later that Adolf Hitler, at the peak of his popularity and power, had never attracted a crowd as large and as warmly emotional as the crowd that listened to Kennedy that day in Berlin.
Kennedy's fighting speech in Berlin, as magnificent as it was, actually was a grave political risk, and he knew it. Such a heated tribute to West Berlin's resistance to Communism could have undone all of the success of his appeal for peace and understanding with the Soviets... But Kennedy could not prevent himself from saying what his heart wanted him to say. He was carried away by the courage of the West Berliners, and shocked by the sight of the Berlin Wall that he had seen that morning, and he had to tell the people how he felt about them.
President Reagan's speech, delivered on June 12, 1987, appeared at first to have little immediate impact beyond those cheering on both sides of the wall who heard it as he spoke. But that would soon change:
In the days and weeks following the event, neither the American nor the European press treated the speech as an especially noteworthy event. Neither, of course, did the Soviets.Now Barack Obama presumes to want to bask in the glow of JFK and Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate. If Team Obama goes ahead with this ill-conceived plan, it will be the most arrogant stunt yet attempted by the Democratic presidential hopeful, a man who is long on spellbinding oratorical rhetoric but short on actual achievment. Arrogance on the part of the accomplished is just arrogance, but arrogance on the part of the unaccomplished is sheer buffoonery.It was only after November 1989, when the Soviet Empire began to crumble, that the world began to honor President Reagan’s challenge as a harbinger of change. President George H.W. Bush’s immediate support for Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s dramatic push for reunification transformed perceptions of the American role in Germany. Almost overnight, the 1987 speech was resurrected as proof of the American spirit that had made reunification possible. Until then, West Europeans had relegated it to the archives as another example of the poetic license the former movie star allowed himself on such ceremonial occasions.
Today, of course, President Reagan’s Berlin challenge has become an object of admiration and legend. As with all legends, its origins and purposes have been subject to many interpretations. Some have defined the speech as a singular demonstration of American idealism, transcending the less lofty aims of then-contemporary American foreign policy. Learned professors have sought to find still deeper truths in a text essentially written by a fractious committee. In any event, all such interpretations of Reagan’s Berlin speech miss a critical point: The President’s appearance before the Brandenburg Gate was not an isolated event. The speech was part of a calculated strategy, conceived over several years by Administration officials, to counter the damage to Transatlantic unity caused by the massive public opposition to NATO INF [western intermediate-range missles to counter the Soviet SS-20] developments, and to arrest the steady drift in Germany toward accommodation with the Russians. How do I know? I was the person charged with much of the planning and substance of the event.
At least Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton had managed to become presidents of the United States, and to some degre, each had managed to achieve something significant in the field of foreign affairs. JFK had sat down with Khrushchev at the 1961 summit and then stood up to him in 1962, when he got Soviet missles removed from Cuba. Reagan had met with Gorbechev in both Washington and Moscow on a number of occasions to hammer out arms agreements. Even Bill Clinton was able to expand the NATO alliance and use his rapport with Yeltsin to establish a cooperative relationship with Russia, which resulted in Moscow helping the U.S. resolve ethnic conflicts in the Balkans by sending peacekeepers to Bosnia in 1995 and intervening to force a capitulation by Serbia in the 1999 Kosovo war.
The staging of a big photo op at the Brandenburg Gate for an American political candidate is more than just an exercise in theatrics and perhaps a new high water mark in the annals of opportunism. It is literally stealing the honor and diminishing the accomplishments of the real American presidents who stood at the great gate before him.
Don't do this, Sen. Obama. Get yourself elected first, and then accomplish something noteworthy in foreign affairs. Then, and only then, should you presume to follow in the footsteps of American presidents to Germany's historic Brandenburg Gate.
- JP
Oh yeah, That’ll lend some gravitas to this lightweight Che wannbe.
Hussein should be at Naco saying “Mexicans, build this wall.”
William the Impeached managed to pick up a female barrista in the Starbucks off Brandenberg Gate, hence qualifying as a "foreign affair"...
Perfect.
This is Barack’s “We are all one nation” speech, in which he will argue that the whole world can come together in peace. He’ll say that the purely self-interested nationalistic mindset is a failed idea which is behind us, and that we can now all join hands and work together in peace, to achieve those things that all peoples of the world dream of: affordable healthcare, a just standard of living, and a better world for their children.
Can’t you just hear him saying all that now? THE MESSIAH IS AMONG US!
Obama will bash Bush and proclaim a “new America” which “listens” to the world, and “partners” with it on climate change and appeasing Islamofascism. Patriotic Americans with a brain will be disgusted and vote McCain or stay home Nov. 4. Unfortunately, most Americans 18-30 have been taught to hate America and are too stupid and ignorant to be disgusted. And of course 93% of black Americans don’t care if he recites “The Cat in the Hat” in Berlin, and will vote for him because they are racists.
Next stop Gettysburg, where he can top Abraham Lincoln.
Oh, that’s right, the media say he already has.
Will he bring the great seal of Obamaland with him to put on the podium if he does this address? I wouldn’t doubt it. The arrogance of this man is too much. He is beyond presumptuous, he thinks he is the messiah. Remember: He IS the one we have been waiting for.
Perfect ...
Guess the speech while tethered from the space shuttle is on the back burner..
For a small-time product of the corrupt Chicago machine, a happy benchwarmer in a black racist church, and an Alinskyite “community organizer” who agitated the urban underclass to claim their share of government goodies, this guy sure is putting on airs.
Sheeit. Obama-lama-ding-dong couldn’t blow Reagan’s nose.
Bravo!
Mr Putin, rebuild this wall!
Oh boy, am I ever slooow...
“Plans for a visit by Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic candidate for President of the United States, have moved forward — slowly — in Berlin, where he may give a speech before the Brandenburg Gate this summer.
Germany's ambassador to Washington, Klaus Scharioth, has reportedly worked for weeks to convince Obama’s campaign that the candidate's only large European appearance should take place in Berlin. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier talked to Obama by phone last April and learned that he might visit Germany. In the meantime, according to SPIEGEL sources, Steinmeier’s staff has set plans in motion for an Obama appearance in the capital by the end of July.
Both Steinmeier and his boss, Chancellor Angela Merkel, have expressed willingness to meet Obama. A member of Obama’s campaign has already met with Berlin's mayor, Klaus Wowereit, and the Secret Service has reportedly started to investigate security questions surrounding a visit.
No location has been announced, but the Berlin Senate has reportedly been asked whether Obama can speak in front of the Brandenburg Gate, where former US President Ronald Reagan gave a famous speech in 1987. Reagan made a show of asking then-Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall.
The Brandenburg Gate has fresh significance for an American presidential candidate, since a large new US embassy officially opened there on July 4.
Former US President John F. Kennedy gave a famous Berlin speech of his own in 1963, but he appeared in front of the town hall in Schöneberg — then the seat of government in West Berlin — which lies several miles from the Brandenburg Gate.
The itinerary for Obama’s summer tour includes France, Great Britain, Jordan and Israel. Berlin's Mayor Wowereit said, “It would be a good signal for German-American relations if the presidential candidate paid his respects in Berlin.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/us-elections/0,1518,564083,00.html
Obama hasn’t done anything this entire campaign but presume himself already the President, from the seal to talking later elections. Why would this be any different?
This Kabuki theater is going to end up in a real disaster when election day rolls around. The media is building this shallow egotist into something he is not and when he is dumped in a landslide a lot of gullible followers are going to be ready to riot.
This man is a total lightweight compared to Reagan.
Mr Calderon, tear down that wall.
I was thinking about what the strategy session must have been like to come up with this one...I can just see it now:
MEETING TO DISCUSS CAMPAIGN STRATEGY
YOUNG ADVISER 1: We have a problem. When Barack tries to talk about military related issues on the campaign trail, people snicker at him. Veterans openly laugh at him. He is viewed as a black Michael Dukakis.
YOUNG ADVISER 2: We need to show the American people that he is just as staunch and reliable on national defense as...Ronald Reagan!
YOUNG ADVISER 3: (Projectile vomits into nearby trash can)
YOUNG ADVISER 2: Sorry dude! No, I am serious! All it takes is imagery, and if we put Barack in the same settings that strong presidents were seen in, then regular voters who are as stupid as sheep will automatically make a mental connection!
YOUNG ADVISER 1: Hmmm. I think you are on to something there. Let’s see...we could get him in a flight suit and fly him out to the USS Ronald Reagan...
YOUNG ADVISER 2: No. The officers, who are the bourgeoisie obviously hate him. The proletariat love him, of course, but due to rigid class distinctions, lack of trust and desire to keep them from rising to any well paying jobs, the proletariat are banned from flying the planes. We cannot trust the pilots from the privileged class to fly him safely. They might fly their planes into the ocean on purpose. No that won’t work. Besides, only the Bushchimphitler wore a flight suit.
YOUNG ADVISER 3: (Timidly) And I think the flight helmets would all be too small to fit over his ears...
(YOUNG ADVISERS 1 & 2 turn and glare at him)
YOUNG ADVISER 2: How about if we set up a meeting between Putin and Barack in Iceland, the way Reagan met with Gorbachov...he could wear one of those dark overcoats...they could have the wind blowing through their hair...
YOUNG ADVISER 3: But...Barack doesn’t have any hair for the wind to blow through. And Putin doesn’t really either.
YOUNG ADVISER 2: The dimwit has a point. Maybe we could have Putin take off his overcoat and shirt, grab a pole...a fishing pole, and...
YOUNG ADVISER 1: Stay on focus. This is not about Putin, no matter how much we admire him. I admit he IS attractive without the clothes...er...shirt, but...we have to find some way to fool the American voters into thinking Barack is strong on defense.
YOUNG ADVISER 2: Here’s an idea! How about having him appear at the Brandenburg Gate as Reagan did...
YOUNG ADVISER 3: (whines) But...Reagan was EVIL! He wanted everyone with AIDS to die! He cut all the money for AIDS research from...
YOUNG ADVISER 1: Can it. Not everything is about AIDS. We will pander to no constituency before its time. Now is not the time. How’s this: We get one of our writers to rewrite the speech that JFK gave at the Brandenburg Gate to address current issues...
YOUNG ADVISER 3: Like AIDS! And Racism! And Big Oil! And Corporate Greed!
YOUNG ADVISER 2: Yes! And we can have Barack make all the same hand motions as he speaks, the same way JFK did...(chops with his hand)
YOUNG ADVISER 3: I’m on it! I have all the JFK DVDs back at my penthouse in Manhattan. This is great! It’ll be just like when JFK said “Mr. Khrushchev: Tear down this wall!” (spoken in heavy gay Boston accent)
(YOUNG ADVISER 1 & 2 stare in disbelief at YOUNG ADVISER 3)
YOUNG ADVISER 1: You idiot. JFK never said it that way.
YOUNG ADVISER 2: Yeah! He wasn’t gay!
(he wasn't?)
We all know who Bill Clinton tried to model himself after...:)
YOU SIR, ARE NO RONALD REAGAN (EXCEPT MAYBE THE COMEDY)!
Reagan? Heck, Obama ain’t even a Bill Clinton. But he is a Jimmy Carter... LOL!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.