Department of "Huh?" (Atlantic Monthly Death Spiral Watch)
I think this is the absolutely worse kind of journamalistic c--- from Nora McAlvanah, but Marc Ambinder thinks it is impressive--impressive enough to give his space and direct his readers to:
GOPers Wait a Lifetime for a Moment Like This: A guest post from Nora McAlvanah :
GOPers may have a field day with at least one oft-used-line from Obama’s speech today, which he amended slightly for his Berlin audience:
“America, this is our moment. This is our time” – Obama, speaking in MN the night he officially won the Dem nomination (6/3).
“People of Berlin -- people of the world -- this is our moment. This is our time” – Obama, in his first formal speech of his foreign tour (7/24).
What ad guru won’t be tempted to play the clips back-to-back, only one to a widely ecstatic cheering crowd of Europeans? Insert announcer with an appropriately unnerving, deep voice, asking: “Which is it, Obama? Who’s moment? Who’s time?”
It’s not John Kerry showing off his proficiency in French. Quiet the opposite, really. But maybe when a candidate is on foreign soil he shouldn’t use such un-foreign rhetoric.
But when his readers complain, Marc Ambinder says that maybe it isn't so impressive at all:
Marc Ambinder: Das Ein In Berlin ; Or, America As Global Citizen: Nora McAlvanah's guest post provoked a flood of angry e-mails into my inbox, and to tell you the truth, I kind of agree with some of their sentiments: who, exactly, set these strictures that Obama has fallen afoul of? What's so bad about Germans cheering an American, especially when the visuals were stunning. Hundreds of American flags, waving. 200,000 Berliners cheering an American presidential candidate.
A short speech, mostly, carrying the message that animates Obama's presidency: The message of the speech was the common values that unite the citizens of the world. Obama's Berlin is a shining beacon of hope to the world, "where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is so challenge too great for a world that stands as one." The "burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change in leadership in Washington will not lift this burden in the new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more, not less."
Is this too presumptuous? Is it what globally conscious Americans have been longing to hear? Will Americans be able to distinguish between the domestic politics of foreign nations and the foreign politics of our nation? This is a show, to be sure. Will it be renewed in the fall? Or dropped from the schedule?
Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
