Month: July 2008

More details are emerging about Obama’s Germany trip and the president’s determination to meddle with it.:

Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt told the mass circulation tabloid Bild that "it would be nice if the German government would focus on strengthening its contacts to us rather than already beginning to look for our successors."

And this:

"It’s said that the Chancellor’s foreign policy advisor, Christoph Heusgen, was berated by a member of the Bush team over Obama’s plans at the G-8 summit in Japan."

And it turns out that speeches at the Brandenburg Gate are pretty much a dime a dozen. It looks to me as if the Bushies are desperate to prevent Obama getting an ovation in Europe. Given the disdain and contempt of much of the European public for Bush, and the powerful advantage the Europe trip will give Obama, it’s understandable. But no less tacky.

My English gut tells me Ambers is right:

Obama’s trip to Europe will be a huge event…maybe as big as his convention, maybe as big as a debate. Sheer curiosity will translate into enormous crowds, even as most of Obama’s events will be small and pooled. The European press will climax, repeatedly.

I predict an extended media orgasm as well. Europeans are desperate to fall in love with America again. This young, black Kennedy figure will likely create iconic scenes – reminding the old of the America that once inspired them and the young of the capacity for change that America still contains. And it’s simply great theater.

One thing we have learned about the Obama campaign that has been overlooked: they understand theater. In fact, no campaign has understood theater this way – and its powerful relationship to politics  – since Deaver managed Reagan.

(Photo: Obama in Virginia this week by Chip Somodevilla/Getty.)

Another informative episode on "Christian Worldview Network":

Part II: In today’s program Brannon exposes that lie that Hitler killed homosexuals. Even a homosexual writer admits that is false. Some of Hitler’s inner circle were homosexual and bi-sexual. The Brown Shirts started as a homosexual and bisexual organization.

Gideon Rachman takes Alan Beattie’s advice:

An ineffectual international organisation yesterday issued a stark warning about a situation it has absolutely no power to change, the latest in a series of self-serving interventions by toothless intergovernmental bodies.

But the photo-ops make everyone feel important, no?

A reader in Berlin writes:

Everyone just assumes that thousands will come out for such a speech. And they’d be right. Berliners has already hosted dozens of Obama events, dating back to February. The Democrats Abroad were almost co-opted by groups organizing here before the Dems as a party could coalesce around a candidate. On Monday night there is another one – held perhaps ironically at the bar and club "White Trash Fast Food“.

It’s worth noting – in all of the dispute – that Kennedy’s most famous Berlin speech – the "ich bin kein Berliner" speech – was not held in front of the Brandenburg Gate, or the Berlin Wall, but instead in a (today relatively inconspicuous) market square at the Schöneberg city hall.

With the opening of the embassy last week here right next to the Brandenburg Gate, the Pariser Platz square has suddenly become the focal point for US-German relations. There is no better place for a speech by a person whose candidacy holds so much promise for the restoration of cooperation, mutual trust and amity between Europe and the US.

Larison sees the Brandenburg option as more hubris. I have a feeling it won’t happen. Why not Schoneberg? And take Caroline.

Kudlow revises his cap-and-trade reporting:

…as far as abandoning, that’s not what I said. I wrote that a McCain presidency might resurrect cap-and-trade, although it will be a much different format. But the key point is that several campaign advisors told me that the issue now is jobs and the economy, and of course $4 gas at the pump and $140 oil in the world market … Hence, the senator is being smart to move away from cap-and-trade and instead support drill, drill, drill for more energy supplies to reduce gas prices, as well as tax-cut plans to spur economic growth and jobs.

Loved this detail from the LA Times:

On Tuesday, a staff member in the digital department e-mailed Jackson’s comments to a producer for "The O’Reilly Factor," who was vacationing in France.

Why does an O’Reilly producer hate America?

British Paratrooper from the 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, Lcp Michael Taylor, 25-years-old from Liverpool sits in his mosquito net tent on July 9, 2008 in Gibraltar FOB (Forward Operating Base) in Upper Gereshk Valley,Helmand Province, Afghanistan. By Marco Di Lauro/Getty.

A paleocon laments:

"The Wild West has been resurrected not as a story of taming the wilderness, both external and internal, on behalf of decency and civilization, but as a convenient synecdoche for that dark, amoral, and timelessly violent world that all art worthy of the name today must presuppose. Where there is no hope of a better world, there can be little to distinguish heroes from villains."

I guess WALL-E doesn’t count.

Obama isn’t going to please everyone:

Most Arabs only know Barack Obama’s name and skin color, so, unsurprisingly, they are fairly enthusiastic about his candidacy. But what are Thomas Friedman’s Arab equivalents, the opinion leaders of the Middle East, saying about Obama? A famously diverse group–ranging from idealistic reformers to moralizing Islamists–the Arab world’s pundits are almost unanimous in their skepticism of him, offering a sharp corrective to the narrative of a world united in its ardor for Obama. They have been arguing that he is not so unconventional an American politician when it comes to the Middle East, and that the people of the region have reason to be worried about an Obama presidency.

(Hat tip: Michael Totten)