Monday, July 14, 2008

BARACK OBAMA

Brandenburg Gate Speech Plans Kaput?

A smidgen of credit to Barack Obama, presuming I'm not reading more into his comments than I should, in his apparent decision to not speak at Brandenburg Gate. The buzz that the Obama campaign wanted to speak at the site of Reagan's famous address* had put Angela Merkel's government in a no-win situation. If Obama's request was denied, Germany will have alienated a potential President Obama; if the request was granted, it appeared to endorse Obama and alienate a potential President McCain.

“We didn’t have a particular site in mind,” he said. “I want to make sure that my message is heard as opposed to creating a controversy. So, you know, our goal is just for me to lay out how I think about the next administration’s role in rebuilding our transatlantic alliance, and so I don’t want the venue to be a distraction. What I want to do is just work with the folks on the ground to find some place that’s appropriate.”

Of course, as Jen Rubin notes, "Huh? If so, that’s a whole lot of inaccurate reporting and bizarre leaks from his campaign. He couldn’t be lying, could he?"

Hey, let's have another round of "blame the staffer."

* As Karl noted, Andrew Sullivan has written some whoppers in his time, but his declaration that "it turns out that speeches at the Brandenburg Gate are pretty much a dime a dozen," ranks up with the most glaring. One article he links to mentions the speech by President Reagan (which no one has ever forgotten) and one by President Clinton (which no one has ever remembered). The other article notes:

In the meantime, though, the German government has already come up with a compromise. Obama, government officials have suggested, doesn't need to speak there — he could simply walk through the gate.

"Until now every American guest has walked through the Brandenburg Gate," Karsten Voigt, the government's coordinator on German-American cooperation, said. "Journalists have always been present. And the guest has always had something to say."

Brief remarks to reporters while walking through the gate is not the same as "a major speech" or "an outdoor address" which is what Team Obama was contemplating. Beyond that, I have not encountered any record of any active American presidential candidate speaking at Brandenburg Gate.

07/14 11:56 AMShare