Obama in Berlin: A man of many moments – UPDATED

In most colleges, Communications 101 teaches that in order to give a really memorable and meaningful speech, a speaker should have a genuine issue to speak about, and some relevance to the occasion. Think of Reagan hoping to “tear down these walls…” Martin Luther King longing for the day people would be judged not by the color of one’s skin, “but on the content of [one’s] character… Churchill pledging victory and offering nothing but “blood, toil, tears and sweat…” Bush vowing to eradicate terrorism with a heart that “…will not tire…will not falter, and…will not fail…”

Senator Barack Obama went to Berlin today, a place to which he had no real connection, to make a speech for no actual reason, on no special occasion, and the speech reflected it. It was a brief speech of many words and a lot of filler.

There was some pretty language; I liked “a people of improbable hope…”

It was nice to hear the Berlin airlift mentioned – a true shining moment in American and USAF history – but Obama seemed curiously flat when describing it, and Berliners had lived through it. I wondered, as I listened, if any of them were thinking, “yeah, don’t bring that up; we don’t want to be reminded that we needed you.”

I give Obama credit for bringing it up, particularly since doing so could not help but make people recall (whether he wanted them to or not) that it was a compassionate and right-thinking America who – quite unlike victors throughout history – saved a vanquished enemy. It was a stark reminder that America-in-Victory builds no empire and asks for no land beyond what she needs to bury her dead; that America – sixty years on – is still fighting for the lives and freedoms of others, still spilling her blood, for human liberty.

And she does it whether anyone will join her in the effort or not. If tomorrow an American President were to say “we go to Dafar” or “we go to Somalia” I truly believe most Americans would say, “yes, let’s go; let’s save those people. Let’s not forget Rwanda and all we did not do, there.”

America does more than take meetings and draft resolutions. She saves; she frees. She doesn’t always do it perfectly, sometimes she makes mistakes, but she puts forward the effort, and she usually succeeds.

Obama was right to suggest that other nations need to do more. But he couched it in language that seemed to apologize for American leadership, and that was both too easy and a tad dishonest. If America had not shown leadership after 9/11, Al Qaeda would have done a great deal more damage than the deplorable bombings in London and Bali – recall, Osama bin Laden and his thugs had attacked American interests and embassies every 18 months or so throughout the 1990’s – instead, the next American president will deal with an AlQaeda that is greatly diminished in power and influence.

Had America not led, this would not be true, and Obama could have said it; it seems like the least a potential president could have done for his country.

Since Obama truthfully did not have a reason to be in Berlin, and nothing much to talk about, parts of his speech became time-killing history lessons or lists of worldly woes. Obama essentially said: “here is a list of everything that’s wrong in the world, and (once I’m president) we’ll fix all of it, with sacrifice and brotherly love.”

Ho-kay! Spoken to a people accustomed to the 35 hour work week, the six weeks holiday, and no desire to form the sort of military that would actually be needed to contribute to all of that world-fixing, because – as we have seen – UN forces, left alone, have proved rather spectacularly ineffective. What exactly will be sacrificed by the beer and bratwust-fed audience Obama addressed today? We don’t know. All we know is that this was the “moment” that they were called on to assist in the quest for hope and change. Or something.

This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it. This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it. If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York.

Actually that “moment” has been 7 successful years in the making, thanks largely to the tongue-tied fella who said he wouldn’t “tire, falter or fail,” and his counterparts in Britain, Germany, France, Canada, Poland, Japan, Australia (until recently) and elsewhere, but why not stick to the narrative and pretend that we’ll only get around to “working together” once a New and Improved American President is finally at the helm?

That line is of a piece with this one:

Generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.

For a young man, Senator Obama certainly has identified and claimed as his own some essential and world-changing moments. How much real momentum he gets from any of them remains to be seen.

Also, apparently, how much cash.

UPDATE: I originally included, but struck from this piece, a line about how much of the speech reminded me of vapid pop-music, particularly “We are the world…” Seems I was not alone in hearing treacle.

Also seems I was not the only one noticing Obama’s many “moments”.

More on the speech & Obama in Germany:
“He’d make a good President of the World”
Ed Morrissey here and here
Shinkwrapped (H/T MOM)
Tom Maguire
Obama’s Berlin Subtext
“My New Messiah!”
Neo-neocon
Powerline here and here
What rising seas? What droughts in Kansas?
Lee Cary compares Obama in Berlin to Sarkozy in America.
“There wasn’t an original thought…”
“…it turns out the vague overture is the entire symphony…”
Ace O’ Spades HQ here and here
Ray Robison
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