Hi Thom,

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.

Love the show! Grüß an Higgings. I stream your cast; I stream it up.

Ein Ami in Deutschland

Not that I wanted to be too negative. It was a good speech, but could have been a great speech. I was also impressed with the number of Americans there - there were thousands. I drove 6 hours to get there (whoops, bad carbon balance) and 8 to get back and am glad I went. Most of the Germans I talked to thought it was a good speech - of course they were hoping for a good speech. They do not like Bush.

Obama was also a bit jumbled in places saying we needed free trade and fair trade in the same sentence - what was that? He also sounded really hawkish in many places. One of the funniest parts was when he thanked Merkel and no one clapped and kind of murmured. There were street vendors selling buttons and T-shirts. They pretty much sold out of t-shirts and could have sold twice as many.

There were a lot of people wearing these WWF climate change shirts that had a polar bear (symbol of Berlin) and had a slogan about climate change with a big "Yes you can" directed at Obama and the US.

BTW, you weren't really allowed to bring any posters or such, but there was no checking on the boulevard.

Ein Ami in Deutschland
Here is a puzzle - > F I S A T S <-

Ami_in_DE
I would like to start out by thanking you for giving me a more personal insight on how the wonderful people of Deutschland may have viewed and felt about Obama’s speech. I agree that he could have given a much better speech for German people for the reasons you so eloquently lay out, however, in my opinion this was not a speech for the German people. I believe that his speech was mostly for the voters in the U.S. Not for the people who do not vote for President of the U.S. As a voter living in the U.S., I think his speech was very poignant and quite successful. I would have liked to hear a more specific, issues oriented speech myself, but, I have found it makes for a very dull speech.

We can only hope that he comes back and gives that speech. I see a lot of good will toward the US in the grown Germans, although tried by GWB. In the Germans just coming of age, they know no other America other than GWB's America, and it is not a pretty picture of the regard in which they hold the US.The risk is losing the good will of half a generation if they are not won soon. What would you think if all you knew of America was GWB's America - pre-emptive war, torture, domestic spying, corruption, anti-environment, cockiness, conceit, ... ?