My neighbors refer to John McCain as "anderen Boosh." (Another Bush.) They are quite ready to see Obama elected.

-verm

"Look at it this way, if we fail, we'll only lose our lives."

Hi Lionel,

I am an expatriate living in Germany for about 7 years now, and I went over to Berlin yesterday evening to take in Obama's speech. Although I will vote for Obama and (even though I was quite disappointed with his FISA vote), I thought Obama missed the mark yesterday evening.

I thought the speech could have been so much better rather than just okay.

As I walked to the site with the other tens of thousands in the audience, there was really an optimistic sense of amiable anticipation. Standing on the boulevard between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column, totally packed in like sardines, everyone was filled with this anticipation and you could feel it. Standing there you were not able to see much of anything other than lots of other people and, if you were lucky, one of the massive monitors. As Obama began to speak, everyone listened carefully, many on tippy-toes just wanting to catch a glimpse. They were all searching for something they could hook on to to get on his bandwagen. It was like 200,000 people standing at a bus stop seeing a bus coming, hoping and trying to discern if the bus would pick them up.

But they had to wait. First, came a WWII history lesson with little insight. Obama was like any average tourist coming to Germany for the first time with the mental image of Germany seemingly forged by old WWII war movies. This was a mistake. He spent way too much time looking way back instead of forward. The Germans don't really want to hear this. He was quite out of touch with the issues that would really have swept them off their feet. It would have been so easy. He should have tried to give more of an Al Gore content speech rather than trying to give a JFK speech. If he had launched more into the direction of praising the Germans for their progressive accomplishments in recent years – Environmental Sensitivity, Good Healthcare, Social Equality, Energy policies favoring alternative energies, etc. - emphasizing that they are exemplar of fighting the good fight in so many ways, that they are once again a shining, hopeful light for America in many areas where America also needs to go, and that America needs these kinds of good partners to help lead the way to address the pressing problems becoming more and more acute.

The audience was starved for this, looking for anything for which they could cheer and applaud. Obama, take us on a journey! He didn't really do this. He could have. That disappointed me. He only seemed to mention these issues so close to Germans' hearts in passing, whereas they should have been his focus. He coulda pulled it off. Too bad no one told him how to do right.