July 25, 2008

7/25: One Speech, Many Reactions

Like his 3/18 speech on race, Barack Obama's Berlin speech elicited polarized reactions in the blogosphere. Most liberal bloggers liked the speech, which they viewed as an eloquent articulation of liberal internationalism. However, it was less the content of the speech than the spectacle itself that impressed the netroots. Lefty bloggers were delighted to see an American politican received so warmly abroad, and several compared the cheering German crowd with the protests that typically greet President George W. Bush when he visits Europe.

Conservative bloggers split into two categories: those who hated the speech, and those who were simply bored by it. Bloggers in the former category accused Obama of "deprecat[ing] the United States on foreign soil for his own self-aggrandizing purposes" and declared that he makes them "ill". Bloggers in the latter category called the speech "pretty thin stuff" and compared it it to the '80s song "We Are The World".

OBAMA: They Like Him! They Really Like Him!

Liberal bloggers gave positive reviews to Obama's speech in Berlin, praising both its content and (especially) its symbolism:

• Daily Kos' DemFromCT: "This is what 'proud to be an American' looks like in the 21st Century."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "Realistically, it's not at all fair to keep expecting Barack Obama to deliver stirring, powerful addresses. And yet, he keeps managing to exceed expectations. [...] Obama didn't apologize for America, but he did explain his vision of what makes America great, in case our friends abroad had forgotten. [...] I was also struck by just how much ground Obama covered. Climate change, loose nukes, counter-terrorism, AIDS, poverty, free speech, religious liberty, Darfur, drug trafficking, rule of law -- it was all in there. I never know how people are going to react to speeches, but Obama's speech struck me as a home run."
• Open Left's Mimikatz: "Obama's speech was a terrific reminder that America can lead and be respected in the world if it once again has a President who is a true leader and someone whom the world can respect. [...] As one of the MSNBC commentators said, George Bush goes to Europe and draws huge crowds of protestors. What a treat to see an American leader speak to cheering, enthusiastic crowds again. And for the home folks, over and over [Obama] said how much he loves American and what it has traditionally stood for, the promise that drew his father from Kenya to the US. No one else could have done what he did. McCain seems so small at this moment, so 20th Century."
• Ezra Klein: "It's a good speech, though nothing particularly revolutionary. More important than the words is the image: What looks like hundreds of thousands of Berliners, gathered in a historic square, looking expectantly at an American politician for inspiration and leadership. Our candidates frequently assert that a restoration of America's global leadership will be high on their agenda. But American leadership cannot be passed by an act of Congress, or ratified by the electoral college. It is the rest of the world that must accept our role, and for it to be worth anything, they must do so willingly. The crowd assembled in Berlin today is certainly willing."
• BooMan: "The overall reaction that I had to watching Barack Obama's speech in Berlin this afternoon was mainly visceral. What he said made much less of an impression on me than the spectacle itself. The most remarkable part of it was that Barack Obama has not yet been elected president. And, yet, over a hundred thousand Germans turned out to hear what he had to say and they mobbed him after the speech just trying to get close enough to touch him."

OBAMA II: Stop Trying To Rain On Obama's Parade, Media!

Liberal bloggers are criticizing the media's coverage of Obama's Berlin speech and his foreign tour in general -- particularly the media's repeated suggestions that Obama appears "presumptuous":

• The Huffington Post's Bob Cesca: "Today, the word of the day in the corporate press is... presumptuous. Used in a sentence: Senator Obama is being presumptuous during his trip -- acting all presidential and dignified. How dare he be presidential while running for, you know, president. Presumptuous. During the live CNN web feed of the Berlin address, an anchor used it to describe the event. [...] And Candy Crowley used it in her post-address analysis on CNN. [...] The reality is that positive coverage of any Democrat is limited and temporary for fear of networks and newspapers either being accused of liberal bias or being tossed out of the very serious barbeque loop. Regardless of whether the Democrat, in this case Senator Obama, is having a good day, it's somehow unethical to report on such good news for too long without deliberately concocting an antidote to appease the far-right."
• DemFromCT: "What does it mean to be arrogant? How about presumptuous? Do we think we can be a little more accurate when we throw the terms around? I ask after hearing the talking heads on cable TV blather about while everything about the Obama trip was successful, it 'borders' on being arrogant and presumptuous to be doing as well as he is doing abroad. Not that these were ever terms used by these folks for an event that really deserved the terms. Had they been free with the terms when George Bush landed on the aircraft carrier, or when John McCain said in 2003, referring to Iraq, 'Overall, I Believe Our Goals Have Been Met', they might have a point. But they didn't say that about Bush and McCain then and they won't say it about them now. It's not the narrative they are trying to set. They want to reserve the terms for the new guy, Obama, who hasn't paid his dues with them (at least in their own minds). These same folks are still rather annoyed that Obama doesn't seem to be a supplicant to the talking heads and pundits for their blessing and approval for him to look like a President. He seems to be doing it without them, and not all of them like it."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "While [Obama's] speech will be treated as a major news event, we should expect the [DC media] to be dismissive. Further, expect them to justify this by claiming that the average voter is so utterly xenophobic, that the average voter would rather be hated by the world than embraced by it. What they won't say publicly is that they are starting to adjust their coverage in order to accommodate the attacks the McCain campaign that the Republican Noise Machine are making on their objectivity in this campaign. Let the kowtowing being."
• digby: "The pre-existing narrative of the 'liberal media' is still in very good working order, particularly among the media itself, and it will be put to use at some point to create hostile press for Obama. The only question is if it will happen before or after the election. This is why it's not a good long term policy to have a puerile media that covers politics like it's a Britney Spears stakeout. Even if, on a rare occasion, they temporarily swoon over a Democrat, the longstanding storyline of the 'liberal media' will be deployed and they will eventually overcompensate in the other direction."

OBAMA III: Is It Possible To Be Too Awesome?

Liberal bloggers were particularly critical of a statement made by CNN's Candy Crowley, who reportedly said that while Obama was "awesome" in his Berlin speech, Americans might conclude that he was "too awesome":

• The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "Candy Crowley on CNN: Barack Obama was, indeed, awesome in his Berlin speech tonight, but watch out! Americans might decide he was a little too awesome. Yeesh. They just can't help themselves, can they?"
• dday: "Never in my life have I seen such a concern troll statement like this from a political reporter. [...] Obama has to be 'careful.' He mustn't be too presumptuous. He has to scale back with the soaring rhetoric and the inspiration and the winning, you see. It's decidedly unfair of him to run a decent campaign and soak up all the media attention at the expense of the guy who shows up at the German sausage restaurant on the same day as the Berlin speech."

Meanwhile, AMERICAblog's John Aravosis criticizes Chris Cillizza's suggestion that "thousands and thousands of cheering Germans may not play well stateside": "A million screaming Germans? What is that supposed to mean? And while, yes, Americans don't like fur-ners telling us how to vote, this would be the first time that anyone in the media, to my knowledge, has suggested that Obama's raucous world tour has the chance to hurt him. Sure, it's John McCain's line -- though, funny, McCain didn't mind doing his own world tour in March, and then again a few weeks ago. Maybe the Post would be happier if no one showed up for Obama, that would go over much better with the American people."

TPM's Josh Marshall defends Obama's decision to embark on this foreign trip: "After it became clear that Obama's trip through the Middle East was not only error-free but wildly successful (because of Maliki's gambit), there's been a third wave of press chatter and fretting to the effect that Obama's trip may now be too successful, that voters on the home front would rather have him stateside addressing their concerns than being feted by adoring Europeans. Joe Klein actually had a good post on this at Swampland yesterday. In the short term sense, I don't think watching Obama walk on water in Europe (or in whatever lakes or rivers they have available) will goose his poll numbers. It may even have a bit of the reverse effect. The key was banking a solid trip abroad, an audition for the head of state/commander-in-chief role, that he'll be able to refer back to (mostly implicitly, sometimes explicitly) during the tough weeks ahead in the fall. [...] Fundamentally this election is about hiring Obama, and overcoming the residual doubts (about his newness, youth, funny name, whatever) that are allowing John McCain even to stay in contention."

OBAMA IV: A Sickening Display

Many conservative bloggers were disgusted by Obama's Berlin speech:

• RedState's Haystack: "The Power Of Christ Compels You... Sorry -- a la 'The Exorcist' -- that's all that ran through my head as I listened to the Obamessiah give his sermon at a place that once enjoyed a similar spectacle when Hitler addressed his OWN zealots...and we all know how well THAT worked out, don't we? [...] Never before have I witnessed such reverence and grandeur for a kid who has no business being where he is, save for the love train he enjoys from the enabling media conglomerates and a lot of interesting personal connections.. This man makes me ill."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "Absolutely stunning. A major party candidate to be President of the United States just spoke to a crowd of over 100,000 on foreign soil and tried to apologize for America. Barack Obama just couldn't bring himself to make an unqualified defense of America without criticizing the country for not having always lived up to its ideals. In order to curry favor with Europeans, he went after America for not being as tough on businesses in the fight against global warming as Germany, and in neutral terms said that the two superpowers came 'too close, too often' to starting a nuclear war -- as if America and the Soviets were equal threats to world peace. A friend of mine emailed during the speech to say 'I feel sick.' I'm sure he isn't the only American who feels that way this afternoon."
• Power Line's Scott Johnson: "In his sermon to the Germans, Barack Obama presents himself both as Barack the Baptist and the Obamessiah. Nevertheless, Americans naturally root for the underdog to prevail. For pride to take a fall. Don't we instinctively seek to puncture the grandiose pretensions of a blowhard? It seems to me that this is the question that Obama's speech elicits. And one more question. I wonder if Americans will appreciate Obama's deprecation of the United States on foreign soil for his own self-aggrandizing purposes. Surely one does not need to be a conservative Republican to recoil from this display."
• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "Is it possible that many Americans will not warm to the idea of a candidate presuming to speak as an incumbent, and to do so to the world from Berlin? [...] Many conservative analysts praised the speech, but opinion elites should check with the independent voters of the industrial midwest where this election will be decided. Their dads fought and won W.W.II and they may not find enough pride in American greatness in Obama's speech."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "Watching news footage of Barack's Berlin speech last night, it wasn't just his reference to being a 'citizen of the world' (a term beloved of the left) that irked me. Rather, it was the sheer presumptuousness of an American presidential candidate apologizing for his country. No doubt, if Barack is elected, we'll all get to do plenty of bowing and scraping before the likes of Germany and France -- with apologies to everyone simply for existing, using energy and (as he did yesterday) presuming to remove a dictator whom the entire world believed to have weapons of mass destruction and trying to bring a second stable, democratic government to the Middle East."
• The Weekly Standard's Dean Barnett: "I thought the speech was a giant failure. Obama loaded the speech with banal cliches in the hope that it would be a giant nothing-burger, and yet he still failed. To him, referring to oneself as a 'citizen of the word' may sound like the kind of meaningless lofty language that he specializes in. But 'citizen of the world' is actually a pretty freighted term given the context that this particular citizen of the world wants to be President of the United States. Perhaps Obama's ego has grown so large that he figures one country, even the world's lone superpower, is no longer worthy of his leadership. A quick prediction -- 'the citizen of the world' mess-up will be one of the issues that frames the rest of the election."

Right Wing News' John Hawkins compares Obama to Hitler: "Over the last few years, we've heard endless comparisons between George Bush and Hitler, but let's face it: Obama has a lot more in common with Hitler than Bush ever did. Obama is toweringly arrogant, uses messianic, fascistic rhetoric, seems to have ambitions that stretch past his own country to the world, and has legions of mind-numbed zombielike followers doing his bidding and blaming all their problems on convenient scapegoats. So, with that in mind, meet ObamaHitler!"

OBAMA V: Yawwwn

Other conservative bloggers weren't offended by the content of Obama's spech; they simply found it boring and cliche-ridden:

• NRO's Amy Holmes: "Berlin, Paris, Kalamazoo. He could have given this speech anywhere. Obama goes to Berlin and winds up in Bangor. But maybe that was the point. Unlike JFK, Clinton, or Reagan, Obama's purpose in Berlin was essentially self-serving. The great cause at stake was his own campaign -- not the threat of Communism, or adapting to a post-Communist world. The great purpose to which Obama was asking his Berlin audience to rally was his own presidential aspirations. Pretty thin, not the stuff of history books."
• RedState's Kevin Holtsberry: "This was not a serious speech by a serious person, but another attempt by Obama to seem important by giving a big speech on a grand stage. There is nothing in that speech that is meaningful, insightful, or useful. It is a an amalgamation of liberal idealism and arrogant do-goodism. It is an attempt to paint the world as in some kind of universal crisis so that Obama can claim the leadership role and the mantle of change not just in a presidential election cycle but worldwide."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "I didn't think Obama's Berlin speech was as bad as Scott [Johnson] did. Actually, I could have given large chunks of it myself, although perhaps not with a straight face. It will no doubt contribute to the dawning realization among Obama's nutroot fans that he doesn't need them and doesn't much care what they think."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "There was not a ton to object to, and indeed a lot to like, in Obama's speech in Berlin. Although I think I preferred it the first time I heard it, when it was sung by all those celebrities and rock stars back in the mid-80s. Oh, wait, that was 'We Are The World.'"
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "Barack Obama's speech in Berlin was a coherent, articulate, but hardly memorable expression of the liberal internationalism that, I take it, will govern his foreign policy if he is elected president. This approach to foreign policy wisely recognizes the need for the U.S. to be heavily engaged in the world, but fails fully to recognize the need for this engagement to be backed up by force and the credible threat of force."
• NRO's Kathleen Parker: "Obama's speech struck me as so riddled with clichés that even he was bored. It seemed like his speechwriters went through a bunch of old speeches, pulled favorite phrases and strung them together between a few poll-approved Big Ideas."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "For a supposed rhetorical genius, Barry never actually delivers any memorable lines, does he? It's the circumstances of his speeches that make them 'memorable.' The best he can do by way of takeaways is Zen pap like 'Yes, we can' or 'We are the ones we've been waiting for' or today's latest mindless positive affirmation, 'This is our moment, this is our time.' [...] As petty as McCain's attacks lately on Obama's popularity have been, I sympathize with his emperor's-new-clothes predicament on this point. It's one thing for the media to politely ignore that this crap is cliche and an inch deep, but to actually celebrate it as evidence of eloquence?"

MCCAIN: Hypocrisy Watch

Liberal bloggers are accusing McCain of hypocrisy after he criticized Obama for making a speech in a foreign country, noting that McCain has already given political speeches in foreign countries during this campaign:

"'I would rather speak at a rally or a political gathering any place outside of the country after I am president of the United States,' McCain told [NBC's Kelly] O'Donnell. 'But that's a judgment that Sen. Obama and the American people will make.'

However, on June 20, McCain himself gave a speech in Canada -- to the Economic Club of Canada -- in which he applauded NAFTA's successes. An implicit message behind that speech was that Obama had been critical of the trade accord. Also, McCain's trip to Canada was paid for by the campaign."

• MyDD's Josh Orton: "Remember one month ago when John McCain traveled to Canada as a campaign expense and gave a speech at the Economic Club of Toronto to sing the praises of NAFTA and implicitly hit Obama for raising some doubts about the trade agreement? Apparently, John McCain doesn't remember that. Because today he's criticizing Barack Obama for giving a campaign speech in another country."
• Bowers: "Seventeen days after taking a trip abroad to Columbia and Mexico, five weeks after giving a paid campaign speech in Canada, and two months after criticizing Obama for not going to Iraq, the McCain campaign criticizes Obama for taking a trip abroad that includes a stop in Iraq."
• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "Yes, how dare a presidential candidate speak to the world about his ability to govern as president. And as a matter of fact, here's John McCain thoughts on this very subject before his trip to Latin America earlier this month: 'Going to Latin America in the midst of a presidential campaign, [McCain] said, speaks less to his role as a senator than to what he's hoping to achieve if elected this fall. "It's more my ability to govern as president," he said, "my ability to lead as president, to keep up with these major issues."' Did he forget that he said that, or is John McCain that much of a hypocrite?"
• Atrios: "LEAVE JOHN MCCAIN ALOOOONE! DO NOT TROUBLE HIM WITH FACTS!"

MCCAIN II: Pandering To Xenophobes?

Liberal bloggers are also accusing McCain of having ugly motives in criticizing Obama for delivering a speech abroad:

• Drum: "Jeez, could he be any more transparent? Why not just carry a big blinking sign saying 'Barack Obama Isn't A True American Patriot'? I mean, I realize we're in the silly season and all, but as Atrios says, this criticism is head scratchingly weird. Non-presidents give speeches outside the country all the time. And yeah, I realize I've been posting an awful lot about McCain campaign trivia lately. But the guy's really been on a helluva roll the last few days, hasn't he?"
• Firedoglake's Swopa: "By complaining about Obama being popular with foreigners, McCain is pandering to the most insular, xenophobic instincts of the GOP base -- showing that he's more worried about them than trying to appeal to the common-sense center. Then again, the prospect of a president whose foreign policy, for the first time in eight years, isn't based on pandering to that fringe probably is exactly why Obama is so popular overseas."
• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "Remember when John McCain's big criticism of Barack Obama was that he didn't take enough foreign trips -- especially to Iraq -- and how he hadn't been adequately tested on this big stage of CODELing? What happened to that? Now the critique is that too many Germans are interested in hearing him talk since, I guess, all else being equal we'd rather have a president foreigners find repugnant."

MCCAIN III: Would You Like Some Cheese With That Whine?

Liberal bloggers are sharply criticizing the McCain camp's conduct during the past week:

• BarbinMD: "Can McCain get any more petty and childish than he has been for the past week?"
• Firedoglake's Scarecrow: "Reporters forced to cover McCain's daily gaffes and dissembling must be frustrated. Whether it's McCain's battle to redefine 'surge' or whining about every thing Obama does, reporters must surely realize the one thing they're not allowed to report. Sure, it's tough to follow President 27%. But the fact is, whatever John McCain once was, campaigning against Obama has revealed McCain as an angry, resentful, often befuddled old man. Every reporter must sense this, but none will report it as his team works the refs with the phony charge they've being unfair to their man."
• DemFromCT: "While Obama looks Presidential, McCain looks petulant. He's ignored his own trips to Canada (with speeches) and Central and South America to suggest that Obama shouldn't be giving speeches abroad. This, after bitterly complaining that Obama hadn't gone to Iraq and Afghanistan, and now complaining that he has. McCain has had a terrible week, and Obama has had a great one."

MCCAIN IV: Adventures In Illogic

Liberal bloggers are sharply criticizing McCain's defense of his incorrect assertion that the Iraq troop surge "began the Anbar Awakening" (as we've noted previously, the Anbar Awakening began months before the surge strategy was implemented). When asked to explain his remarks, McCain claimed that what the Bush administration calls "the surge" was actually "a counter-insurgency strategy...made up of a number of components," some of which began before the Anbar Awakening. Liberal bloggers are arguing that McCain is simply trying to redefine words in an effort to conceal the fact that he messed up:

• Firedoglake's Spencer Ackerman: "McCain submits that the surge is really a... counterinsurgency strategy... and so any counterinsurgency strategy is a surge... and the Anbar Awakening was part of a counterinsurgency strategy... so even though it occurred months before the surge, it's still... a surge! [...] And here's where McCain has lost the plot. Remember that McCain is making an argument that he can prosecute not only a better war than Barack Obama can, but also a better one than President [George W.] Bush has. Key to that has been his dual invocation that he supported the new troop surge of 2007 but also was a fierce critic of a mismanaged war during the years prior. By conflating the pre-2007 approach with the post-2007 approach -- all to save his ass from simply admitting that he doesn't understand what the surge and the Awakening actually are -- McCain completely messes up his own argument for why he's better equipped to prosecute the war. Unless the July 2008-era-McCain wants to argue that we really were succeeding in Iraq in 2005!"
• dday: "So to follow John McCain's logic, everything positive that's ever happened in Iraq is part of the surge, even those occurences that began well before the actual increase in troops, which is, you know, the surge, as defined by the US military and political leaders and pretty much everybody who's ever talked about it. And everything negative is part of the 'failed strategy' of which he was the number one critic. So, bad stuff -- McCain knew it was bad and spoke out. Good stuff -- McCain personally directed it. [...] Of course, this is completely illogical. If the surge is merely counterinsurgency strategy, then we've been surging since 2005 when COIN was implemented, with mixed results, mind you. But since the elite media has very little understanding of Iraq themselves, and since any attempt to clean up the historical record yields the charge that they are undermining the work of the troops, this will probably go unchallenged. Or maybe challenged, by the Obama campaign, but left for the audience to figure out on their own."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "Using these rules, why don't we just retroactively define anything positive as the surge and credit the McMaverick. Got a raise at work? Thank the surge and John McCain. Hit the lottery? John McCain can tell you how it is related to the surge."
• Ezra Klein: "To paraphrase a certain presidential candidate, looks like McCain would rather lie to the American people in order to avoid political embarrassment than admit a mistake and offer a truthful account of the past few years in Iraq. After mixing up the beginning of the surge (2007) with the beginning of the Anbar Awakening (2006), McCain is responding to critics by...digging deeper and redefining words."
• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "John McCain: confused, now with an added dose of desperate."

Conservative blogger Pejman Yousefzadeh weighs in on the controversy: "Strictly speaking, the awakening began prior to the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy. [...] It would be a good and illuminating deal if the following exchange could take place: McCain could admit that he misstated the strict chronology of the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy. In return, Obama could admit that he was completely and entirely wrong about how effective the introduction of the surge and the implementation of the counterinsurgency strategy would be."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A Shifting Issue Terrain?

MyDD's Jerome Armstrong:

"The terrain of the '08 election has, issue-wise, wildly shifted. Gone are the days when Iraq was the number one issue with half the voters and Healthcare was a strong second. Here are the days when 'Economic Security' is the dominant issue and Gas Prices and Job Security are at the top. Iraq is last elections issue. Neither Obama or McCain has fully adjusted to the new terrain. McCain has been more out-front and aggressive in defining himself with it, Obama has been holding back to date. That mirrors the Congress, where Democrats are content with the current dynamics and want to holdout for '09 to address the issue, and Republicans are looking for an issue to move the polls with for '08. If [these remain] the 'economic security' positions of the parties going into the '08 election, [Dems] are not going to win some races we should have, and the GE is going to be very close."

LEST WE FORGET: Too Much Information

From Overheard in the Office:

Maintenance guy: "I'll tell you. Back when I was in prison, at first I couldn't sleep because of all the noise. But I got so used to it that now I can't sleep when it's quiet."
Boss: "When you were where?"

Posted by Ian Faerstein at July 25, 2008 01:19 PM