Barack Obama who found time to go on a 24-hour jaunt to Copenhagen on Oct. 2 to seek the 2016 Olympics games for Chicago apparently cannot find the time for a 24-hour trip to Berlin on Nov. 9 for a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Well we all have our priorities and the president cant be everywhere at once and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will surely represent the United States ably in Berlin.
Still it seemed an odd decision to me -- until I went back and got the speech that candidate Obama delivered on July 24 2008 to a crowd of 200000 in the Tiergarten in Berlin. As I reread the text it struck me that there would be an embarrassing contrast between what Obama said in Berlin 15 months ago and many of the policies he has been pursuing in his nine months as president.
Some conservatives were irritated that Obama introduced himself at the Tiergarten as a fellow citizen of the world. But before that he declared himself a proud citizen of the United States and of his 46 paragraphs only one was devoted to an apology for Americas misdeeds (our share of mistakes times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions). Quite a contrast here with the more profuse apologies he has made abroad this year.
In addition Obama in seven stirring paragraphs recounted Americas airlift of food and fuel to Berlin when the Soviets cut off land access in 1948. True at one point he suggested that the Berlin Wall came down because there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one. But if that sounds like fuzzy every-nation-has-the-same-dreams rhetoric he also spoke of the bullet holes in the buildings and the somber stones and pillars near the Brandenburg Gate evidence of Soviet oppression.
These portions of the Tiergarten speech looking to the past could appropriately be repeated with different phrasing in a speech commemorating the fall of the Wall. But the portions of the Tiergarten speech looking to the future would pose some problems.
In the Tiergarten Obama spoke of the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan and of the need to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida there. That doesnt mesh very well with his recent reconsideration of the Afghanistan strategy he announced in March and reiterated in August nor with the White House spin doctors suggestions that the Taliban and al-Qaida are not necessarily allies any more.
In the Tiergarten Obama asserted his resolve to work with Russia when we can to stand up for our values when we must and to seek a partnership that extends across this whole continent. That doesnt mesh very well with the reset button policy toward Russia that looks past its attacks on Georgia and Ukraine and propitiates the Putin regime with unilateral withdrawal of missile defense installations from Poland and the Czech Republic.
In the Tiergarten Obama said the United States must stand with Europe in sending a direct message to Iran that it must abandon its nuclear ambitions. But that message if sent has evidently not had the intended effect on the mullah regime which is drawing out negotiations while presumably continuing its nuclear program apace.
Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma the blogger in Iran or the voter in Zimbabwe? Obama asked in the Tiergarten. Will we give meaning to the words never again in Darfur?
Well the Obama administration has toughened up a bit on its negotiators recommendation we give cookies and gold stars to the Sudanese regime that has terrorized Darfur and our diplomats have tried to help out in Zimbabwe. But we havent done much of anything for the dissident in Burma and Obama while truckling to the mullahs showed stony indifference to the thousands protesting the stealing of the June 12 elections in Iran.
Last year Obama told Berliners that we and they are heirs to a struggle for freedom. This year his administration has been busy trying to appease dictatorial and authoritarian regimes. So maybe he was wise to skip a return appearance in Berlin. Let Hillary Clinton gloss over the embarrassing contrast between his rhetoric then and his policies now.
Michael Barone is a senior writer with U.S. News & World Report and the principal co-author of The Almanac of American Politics published by National Journal every two years. He is also author of Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again the just-released Hard America Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Competition for the Nations Future.
Barack Obama who found time to go on a 24-hour jaunt to Copenhagen on Oct. 2 to seek the 2016 Olympics games for Chicago apparently cannot find the time for a 24-hour trip to Berlin on Nov. 9 for a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Well we all have our priorities and the president cant be everywhere at once and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will surely represent the United States ably in Berlin.
Still it seemed an odd decision to me -- until I went back and got the speech that candidate Obama delivered on July 24 2008 to a crowd of 200000 in the Tiergarten in Berlin. As I reread the text it struck me that there would be an embarrassing contrast between what Obama said in Berlin 15 months ago and many of the policies he has been pursuing in his nine months as president.
Some conservatives were irritated that Obama introduced himself at the Tiergarten as a fellow citizen of the world. But before that he declared himself a proud citizen of the United States and of his 46 paragraphs only one was devoted to an apology for Americas misdeeds (our share of mistakes times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions). Quite a contrast here with the more profuse apologies he has made abroad this year.
In addition Obama in seven stirring paragraphs recounted Americas airlift of food and fuel to Berlin when the Soviets cut off land access in 1948. True at one point he suggested that the Berlin Wall came down because there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one. But if that sounds like fuzzy every-nation-has-the-same-dreams rhetoric he also spoke of the bullet holes in the buildings and the somber stones and pillars near the Brandenburg Gate evidence of Soviet oppression.
These portions of the Tiergarten speech looking to the past could appropriately be repeated with different phrasing in a speech commemorating the fall of the Wall. But the portions of the Tiergarten speech looking to the future would pose some problems.
In the Tiergarten Obama spoke of the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan and of the need to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida there. That doesnt mesh very well with his recent reconsideration of the Afghanistan strategy he announced in March and reiterated in August nor with the White House spin doctors suggestions that the Taliban and al-Qaida are not necessarily allies any more.
In the Tiergarten Obama asserted his resolve to work with Russia when we can to stand up for our values when we must and to seek a partnership that extends across this whole continent. That doesnt mesh very well with the reset button policy toward Russia that looks past its attacks on Georgia and Ukraine and propitiates the Putin regime with unilateral withdrawal of missile defense installations from Poland and the Czech Republic.
In the Tiergarten Obama said the United States must stand with Europe in sending a direct message to Iran that it must abandon its nuclear ambitions. But that message if sent has evidently not had the intended effect on the mullah regime which is drawing out negotiations while presumably continuing its nuclear program apace.
Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma the blogger in Iran or the voter in Zimbabwe? Obama asked in the Tiergarten. Will we give meaning to the words never again in Darfur?
Well the Obama administration has toughened up a bit on its negotiators recommendation we give cookies and gold stars to the Sudanese regime that has terrorized Darfur and our diplomats have tried to help out in Zimbabwe. But we havent done much of anything for the dissident in Burma and Obama while truckling to the mullahs showed stony indifference to the thousands protesting the stealing of the June 12 elections in Iran.
Last year Obama told Berliners that we and they are heirs to a struggle for freedom. This year his administration has been busy trying to appease dictatorial and authoritarian regimes. So maybe he was wise to skip a return appearance in Berlin. Let Hillary Clinton gloss over the embarrassing contrast between his rhetoric then and his policies now.
Michael Barone is a senior writer with U.S. News & World Report and the principal co-author of The Almanac of American Politics published by National Journal every two years. He is also author of Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again the just-released Hard America Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Competition for the Nations Future.
