Roman Around

Commemorating - via video - the fall of the Wall (and himself)

Could it be that the reason President Barack Obama did not show up in Berlin yesterday to commemorate the twenty-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was that there was no way to work in his name enough times during the ceremony to make it worth his while? Is it presumptuous to speculate that the real reason the leader of the free world chose not to visit Berlin on Monday was that he was afraid a deceased Republican President would get more mention – and thus, more of the spotlight – then he? Or could it be that if he were called upon to say something, that it might be necessary to have to speak well of his own country? (God forbid).

Perhaps if some young Obamacrat with initiative looking to score points with the big man could have worked in an Obama souvenir table by Checkpoint Charlie, or maybe set up a big screen multimedia presentation of Obama’s best teleprompter reads by the Brandenburg Gate (made available on DVD with bonus footage), maybe the President would have graced the proceedings with his presence.

Unfortunately, try as they might, the same master spinsters and political craftspeople who could make Barack Obama convince enough Americans that he was a moderate during the campaign season last year simply could never make the fall of the Berlin Wall be all about Barack Obama.

No one is that good.

Hence, a “no show” in Germany.

Toby Harnden, US Editor for the UK Telegraph, says that because the Berlin Wall commemorations were not Obama-centric, his absence was predictable.

He writes:

There was one world leader absent for today’s commemorations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Surprisingly enough, it’s President Barack Obama, who found time last year to give a campaign speech there last year, which Der Spiegel summed up as “People of the World, Look at Me”.

The White House has cited a packed schedule, though looking at it he had nothing much on yesterday (brief chat to reporters about healthcare – by far his biggest priority) and just blah briefings and a bill signing today until a meeting this evening with Benjamin Netanyahu. This time, Der Spiegel has reported it as “Barack Too Busy”.

But Obama is, of course, making time to trot over to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in December. Didn’t seem to have too much of a problem clearing the diary for that – though his acceptance of the prize and decision to give another soaring, historical, epoch-marking etc etc speech there will be looked back on as a colossal political mistake and sign of hubris.

…

Whatever the reasons, it’s another revealing mistake by Obama. This deserved to be marked by more than just a proclamation penned by a staffer.

To be fair, the President – although not in person – did manage to have his voice heard in Berlin through a pre-recorded video message in which he was able to return equilibrium to the universe by affording himself the opportunity to talk about himself. True, he had nothing to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but as he has shown time and time again since seizing the public’s attention back in 2007, there cannot be a single moment of any kind, in any context, anywhere in the world today, that does not involve or revolve around him in some way.

He’s good like that.

Said Obama:

In a Berlin under siege, President Kennedy said, “Freedom is indivisible. And when one man is enslaved, all are not free.” Few would have foreseen that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg, or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it.”

He then went on to explain that it really wasn’t all that difficult to feed five thousand hungry people with five loaves and two fish. It just took some fancy finagling.

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Update – November 10, 2009 – 11:06 AM

One other thing to note is that our current President did not once mention the name of Ronald Reagan during his echoey, pre-recorded excursion into narcissism. It’s akin to talking about Super Bowl III without ever mentioning Joe Namath, or discussing the history of baseball and neglecting to mention Babe Ruth.

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