Change Germans Can’t Believe In

NYT ^ | July 26, 2008 | SUSAN NEIMAN

[fightinJAG]

WITH gestures that ranged from a wink to a sneer, most anyone you met here this week volunteered the view that Barack Obama’s visit to Europe caused unprecedented frenzy. But it’s been hard for me to find a European, aside from two Harvard-educated friends in Paris, who confessed to excitement — not just about the visit, but the prospect of an Obama presidency.

It is true that Der Spiegel, the German newsweekly, featured Mr. Obama on its cover, topped by the words “Germany Meets the Superstar” — but the cover was satire, and nasty satire at that. The editors managed to find the ugliest photograph of Mr. Obama ever taken. It caught the senator at a moment that might be exhaustion but looks like conceited smirking. When Der Spiegel featured Mr. Obama on its cover in March, the cover line was “The Messiah Factor.” Must one add that this, too, was not meant to be taken at face value?

Europeans will be as relieved as 72 percent of Americans to see the end of the Bush administration, but their attitudes toward the Democratic candidate are far from being the same as the ones he arouses at home. Mr. Obama makes Europeans uncomfortable.

In Germany, politicians in front of large, shouting crowds evoke images that nobody wants to see repeated. But genuine worries about demagoguery are not all that’s at issue. The mocking undertone that accompanies most descriptions of Mr. Obama in the European news media signifies a trans-Atlantic divide.

[fightinJAG]

Maybe the real story on how Europe is receiving the Obambi tour is very different from that told by the American LSM.

[Jeff Head]

BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA - CHANGE YOU CAN COUNT ON, BUT DON'T WANT

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

[hsalaw]

The article has a link to the Der Spiegel “superstar” cover with a really horrid photo of Obambi - he looks like the devil incarnate.

[Thinkin]

Pay close attention to the last few paragraphs.....

Pay VERY close attention.... :-(

[goldstategop]

The Gray Lady says Obama isn't such a trans-Atlantic unifier? Oy vey! I thought that was the entire point of the Magical World Tour. Or there was never magic to begin with. Not typical of the Obama house organ to fret over the Messiah's performance in Berlin!

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[hsalaw]

Mr. Obama’s speech gave Europeans a chance to hear the difference between optimism and idealism. Optimists refuse to acknowledge reality. Idealists remind us that it isn’t fixed.

Ah, no. Quite the opposite: optimists believe good is stronger than evil, and will ultimately prevail; idealists sit around whining because life isn't perfect.

[tessalu]

Germans are usually intelligent, and perhaps can recognize a farce when they see one.

[BlessedBeGod]

[hsalaw]

That’s the one.

[tlb]

An interesting piece. The editorial writer tricks you. The first half of the piece speaks as to the Obama being unimpressive to the Europeans. Something spoken of by other reporters.

Only in the second half does the point of the editorial become clear. Quoting Ronald Reagan and George W Bush’s neocon advisors, “Old Europe” is too worn out and cynical to appreciate the greatness and hope Obama offers.

[Jeff Head]

[goldstategop]

I thought the New York Times would have played over the European enthusiasm for Obama like a second fiddle! Guess it ain't playing too well with the home crowd here.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[hsalaw]

Yup. That’s it.

[hsalaw]

Oops, sorry. I meant to direct the comment “yup; that’s it” to Jeff Head.

[Krankor]

The whole point of this piece is to protect Obama. The idea of Germans deciding who are next president will be, is grating to Joe six pack in the States. This article is meant to reassure him Obama is just a regular guy who the Germans don’t care for either.

[Thinkin]

BINGO !!

[Gumdrop]

I was thinking that same thing. More stories are now coming out that the crowd was much smaller than the first reports claimed. Also the rock concert was the real reason the people were there. I think Obama was a curiosity for the people over there, and the truth is, he crashed their rock concert for a photo op.

As for the Germans, they are quite cynical about politicians making grandiose promises. They were scorched by Hitler and are still paying for it in reduced world esteem. The addition of 17 million communist-indoctrinated citizens in 1990 has severely damaged their economy. The notion of big government is now the plurality among the Germans. The only conservatives (relatively speaking) are mostly in Bavaria, the Rheinland and some parts of Hessen.

[AndrewB]

"...George W. Bush made matters far worse than they ever were..."

Really? Matters have never been worse? Really? Never?

[Enchante]

Author's comments on Ronald Reagan's great speech in 1987 display just how far gone leftists really are - at the very point when President Reagan recognized the historic opportunity to push over the tottering edifice of communism, cynical leftists like this author and her friends couldn't see it. They couldn't see it then, and they learned NOTHING from it. They are like the Ancien Regime, as Talleyrand once described, "they learned nothing and forgot nothing." Contemporary leftists are just as fossilized as the Ancien Regime nobles in the early 19th century.

“No one could live long in Berlin without being completely disabused of illusions,” said Ronald Reagan in his speech calling on Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate. I remember that day in 1987: the eyeballs rolled upward amid jaded sighs. Mr. Reagan’s hosts heard his remarks with not quite concealed contempt, for most saw his speech as a tiresome bit of American naïveté. They had made their peace with a structure they thought would last forever...."