“A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.” ~President John F. Kennedy
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I’m really beginning to question the intelligence of the McCain campaign. While Obama was in Berlin for his speech to 200,000 people, John McCain went to a German restaurant in Columbus, OH. It’s such a ridiculous move, I can’t even fathom how the McCain campaign thought that this would be a good response to Obama’s stop in Berlin.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfEg_HKrSrw]
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The following is Barack Obama’s Speech in Berlin, Germany today (July 24th, 2008). Full text of the speech below the video.
A World That Stands as One
Thank you to the citizens of Berlin and to the people of Germany. Let me thank Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Steinmeier for welcoming me earlier today. Thank you Mayor Wowereit, the Berlin Senate, the police, and most of all thank you for this welcome.
I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.
I know that I don’t look like the Americans who’ve previously spoken in this great city. The journey that led me here is improbable. My mother was born in the heartland of America, but my father grew up herding goats in Kenya. His father - my grandfather - was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.
At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning - his dream - required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West. And so he wrote letter after letter to universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his prayer for a better life.
That is why I’m here. And you are here because you too know that yearning. This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom. And you know that the only reason we stand here tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life.
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Writing at The Huffington Post, Matt Littman says that “John McCain has made the biggest mistake in politics.” What is the mistake? He told Barack Obama to go to Iraq.
Senator McCain, knowing that he held an edge on Barack Obama on the “Commander in Chief” question, badly overplayed his hand. He taunted Senator Obama on his lack of foreign policy experience and he challenged Obama to go to Iraq. He sneered at Obama for formulating an Iraq policy prior to traveling to the war zone. He even offered to go with him to Iraq, as if Obama needed his hand held by the man with military experience.
Of course Obama went to Iraq. And Afghanistan, Israel, Jordan, and Germany. And so far, the trip has been an incredible success. Obama has looked every bit like the President. The images have been striking.
To make matters worse, McCain has made a series of errors in his public statements. The contrast between the two candidates over the past few days has been interesting, to say the least. Littman sums up:
All John McCain has done, with his childish taunting of Obama, is create a situation where Obama has now gone overseas; been seen with General Petraeus smiling, looking Presidential; been photographed with world leaders who seem excited by the prospect of an Obama Presidency, and shown, by images, that he fits in just fine on the world stage; and, of course, Obama has taken all the media attention with him when McCain is desperate for media coverage.
This trip would not have happened without McCain’s taunting — and so, Barack Obama would never have gone on this trip and looked this good if McCain had not made such a stunning mistake in urging him to do so.
Did McCain kill his chance of becoming President? I think it’s still a bit too early to tell. But keep an eye on the polling over the next week or so, and pay attention to where the narrative of this campaign moves from here. The past week may just have been the turning point in this campaign.
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