OBAMA: ICH BIN EIN NOT BUSH
Barack Obama has a remarkable talent for smooth, heartfelt delivery of nearly meaningless speeches. Today's speech in Berlin was a fine example. He said America is a great place where people practice many different religions and everyone can have his or her say; that the world is a big place and we should all get along; and that we should build bridges to people of different nationalities. Wow. Except for perfunctory applause at the obvious points, the speech apparently failed to move a large crowd that had come predisposed to swoon over the hip young politician from America.
The contrast with other Berlin speeches was striking. John F. Kennedy declared a vital solidarity to a city surrounded by hostile forces that, within living memory, had tried to choke it. "Ich bin ein Berliner" received a roar of approval. Ronald Reagan made a very specific demand: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" The vision of both men was eventually vindicated.
What is Obama's vision? His speech was long on glittering generalities and very short on specifics. Even when he seemed to discuss issues in concrete terms, he offered the usual irreconcilable opposites: "Together, we must forge trade that truly rewards the work that creates wealth, with meaningful protections for our people and our planet. This is the moment for trade that is free and fair for all." But American labor unions will never accept free trade, and trade that is "fair for all," as that concept is commonly understood, will never be free; and Obama will never go against union labor.
Free trade is at least an issue within the scope of the American government. But Obama's concerns, of course, go far beyond such mundane limits. How he will achieve them, beyond the usual means of foreign aid, is unlear. How will he "lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time?" How is he going to build bridges to other cultures and peoples?
The answer, of course, is that Obama is himself and he is not George Bush. Obama's enlightened sensibilities will show the way forward. That should be enough to satisfy many foreigners. Whether it will satisfy Americans is another question.