For some reason I can’t say the above sentence without singing it to the tune of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” In any event, Obama speaks tonight in Berlin’s Tiergarten to an expected crowd of 100,000. Obama has been on the cover of just about every German newspaper and magazine this week, has the support of 76 percent of the German populace, and the German magazine Der Spiegel has even already dubbed him “president of the world.”
You would think I would be thrilled to be here for this historic moment–what luck, to be living in the city that is host to the only public foreign policy speech of his trip. Why, then, do I have so little Lust (interest) for going? Okay, part of it is not wanting to stand in the sun for three hours holding a spot, waiting for his 7 pm speech (if he starts on time). But frankly, I also find this speech a bit odd and even out of place. Sure, if he were newly-elected, this would all be appropriate and exciting. But in the middle of a presidential campaign this just seems weird. If this is not a campaign rally, as his staff has asserted, then what is it? Just a Senator giving an ordinary speech? No, of course this is a campaign rally, one of the most significant — if not the most significant of all — of the 2008 campaign. This speech will have far more international coverage and, probably, greater worldwide impact in terms of Obama’s image and (if elected) eventual influence than any domestic rally.
Normally I consider myself an internationalist. I support the consideration of comparative international law in American jurisprudence, for instance, and believe the U.S. and other well-off nations have a very strong moral imperative to help those in need regardless of their citizenship or location. But in this case, it does not feel right for Obama to be campaigning on foreign soil before he has won the presidency. I don’t disagree with his listening tour in Iraq and Afghanistan; that was important and appropriate as a fact-finding mission and also in order to show his ability to lead the armed forces. Even his stops in Europe to meet with foreign leaders can be justified, along the same lines. But a massive public rally on foreign soil? That, I fear, is not only theoretically inappropriate, but also bad politics.
