So POTUS was in Germany today, literally sweating his butt off…
Story via the UK Daily Mail: What a difference 5 years make: Obama braves blistering Berlin heat to make speech before invite-only crowd of 4,500 (that’s 195,500 FEWER than last time he was in Germany).
He was rambling on about reducing nuclear arms and the urgent need to focus on the real war, on – what else (?) – global warming. (Must have been the heat 😀 )
Meanwhile, the average Berliner-on-the street wasn’t all that impressed ~
Somehow I don’t think Obama’s speech today will resonate through history the way another American president’s Berlin address has. It’s almost fifty years to the day (June 26, 1963) since John F. Kennedy gave his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.
Quite a contrast ~
Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect. But we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in — to prevent them from leaving us….
Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we look — can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.
All — All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.
And, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
“Freedom… freedom…”
Sadly, our current president seems to believe freedom itself is expendable, particularly religious and political freedoms.
Related:
Ich bin ein snoop? Obama greeted with hilarious ‘yes we scan’ signs in Berlin
US seizure of journalist records called ‘chilling’
