Obama Speaks To 200,000 In Berlin
Even if John McCain were elected president and personally killed Osama Bin Laden, he would never be able to attract this kind of crowd.
You can read the speech here.
My take: it was a fine speech, but also a very safe speech. When you are a candidate speaking in a foreign country, you just can't be as provocative as a U.S. president could be. So on the Obama Scale of Speechifying, wherein his New Hampshire and Iowa speeches get a 10/10, I'd give this one a 6.
Overall, Obama's trip has been a great way to build up foreign policy cred. You can't say this guy has never been to foreign countries or wouldn't know how to interact with foreign leaders, U.S. generals, or troops after this overseas tour. I doubt it will give him an instant boost in the polls (see my last post) but it will pay dividends down the road.
Oh, and what's this crap I hear on TV about Obama having never traveled the world before? Are these people on crack? He lived in Indonesia for a few years as a child, he spent a summer in Kenya just before law school, and he traveled to various countries in the 1980s and 90s (including Pakistan) to visit his mother, who was an anthropologist and international aid worker. So please, don't compare Obama to George W. Bush, who really hadn't visited other countries before taking the oath of office.
Half the time I feel like the gasbags on TV don't even know what the hell they are talking about.
You can read the speech here.
My take: it was a fine speech, but also a very safe speech. When you are a candidate speaking in a foreign country, you just can't be as provocative as a U.S. president could be. So on the Obama Scale of Speechifying, wherein his New Hampshire and Iowa speeches get a 10/10, I'd give this one a 6.
Overall, Obama's trip has been a great way to build up foreign policy cred. You can't say this guy has never been to foreign countries or wouldn't know how to interact with foreign leaders, U.S. generals, or troops after this overseas tour. I doubt it will give him an instant boost in the polls (see my last post) but it will pay dividends down the road.
Oh, and what's this crap I hear on TV about Obama having never traveled the world before? Are these people on crack? He lived in Indonesia for a few years as a child, he spent a summer in Kenya just before law school, and he traveled to various countries in the 1980s and 90s (including Pakistan) to visit his mother, who was an anthropologist and international aid worker. So please, don't compare Obama to George W. Bush, who really hadn't visited other countries before taking the oath of office.
Half the time I feel like the gasbags on TV don't even know what the hell they are talking about.
posted by Existenz | 3:57 PM
1 Comments:
McCain would attract 200,000 people. 97% would be protesters, 2% riot police, .5% media and maybe the other .5% would actually attend the speech. And he'd probably piss off .4% of them, so he'd be left with maybe 10 guys who actually like his speech.
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