Pat Dollard | Young Americans

First, it was the troop surge had very little, if anything, to do with the recent successes in Iraq …

Now, fuck the wounded troops in the military hospitals in Germany … I gotta go site seeing and shopping …

The military might have gotten more respect from the Clintons than this shit-heel!

Muthaaa … Fucker!

Empty suit??? The man is a fucking chunk of Silly Putty … You remember as a kid flattening it out and pressing the putty to the newspaper and coming back with the image copy on the putty???

Hussein is stealing … Hi-fucking-jacking an image he CANNOT create for himself. The men that came before him had convictions and substance … concerns for others … Hussein ONLY has concerns for himself.

Fucking lame-assed poser …

Competing optics: Cheering Germans or American military? Update: Snubbing wounded soldiers? Update: Touring Berlin instead?

by Ed Morrissey - (Hot Air)

I guess this is a question of priorities. Barack Obama apparently ran short on time in his visit to Germany today, and travelers know how schedules can slip during long tours, even without all of the events Obama had planned. Those circumstances force people to prioritize their time, and eliminate less-useful stops.

So what did Obama cut today? Der Spiegel’s blog reports on Obama’s priorities:

++ Visit to US Military Bases Cancelled ++

1:42 p.m.: SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that Obama has cancelled a planned short visit to the Rammstein and Landstuhl US military bases in the southwest German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The visits were planned for Friday. “Barack Obama will not be coming to us,” a spokesperson for the US military hospital in Landstuhl announced. “I don’t know why.” Shortly before the same spokeswoman had announced a planned visit by Obama.

The message here is that thousands of screaming German fans at the Tiergarten take precedence over visiting Americans serving their country at Rammstein and Landstuhl. Maybe one of the networks following Obama could interview a few of the soldiers about how they perceive that set of priorities from Obama.

Der Spiegel also notes that the French seem diffident about Obama’s visit to Paris, with none of the enthusiasm of the neighbors to the east:

++ Paris Left Cold by Obama Visit ++

3:30 p.m.: While Obama’s Berlin visit has caused a stir, hardly anyone is interested in his trip to Paris on Friday. There are hardly any French media reports on the eve of his visit. There is merely some grumbling about the extensive itinerary for his trip to Berlin. “A speech in Berlin, five little hours in Paris,” writes French daily Le Monde.

Heck, why didn’t Obama skip Paris? He could have still worked in a visit to the American bases in Germany. Apparently, even diffident French get priority over American military personnel.

The Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC) is an overseas military hospital operated by the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense. LRMC is the largest military hospital outside of the continental US. It is located near Landstuhl, Germany, and serves as the nearest treatment center for wounded soldiers coming from Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, it serves military personnel stationed in Germany as well as their family members.

A large proportion of serious casualties from the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters are treated here, flown in via the Ramstein Air Base.

So Obama’s priorities look even more askew than first thought.

Obama canceled a previously-planned stop to visit thousands of American service personnel, including troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan being treated at Landstuhl, so he could hold a political rally for Germans and go shopping in Berlin. Now that’s a nice set of priorities for a man who wants to become Commander in Chief.

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Jake Tapper - (ABC)

Obama On Tonight’s Berlin Speech: “A Crapshoot”

How does one prepare to speak to a million screaming Germans?

I asked Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, this question as he boarded O Force One and came back to the reporters’ veal pen before the plane took off from Tel Aviv, Israel to Berlin, Germany.

This evening Obama will give a speech at the Victory Column at Tiergaten Park.

“I doubt we’re gonna have a million screaming Germans,” Obama said.

Half a million? asked another reporter.

“Let’s tamp down expectations here,” Obama said. “If we get a few tens of thousands…”

Obama said he “did not realize - my staff basically just told me that this space is bigger than I realized. So.”

Asked a reporter: Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

“Uh, it’s a potentially bad thing if nobody shows up,” Obama said, laughing. “You know, we’re sort of on the high wire all of the sudden. It’s like, ‘I’m sorry, how many people does this accommodate? How many?’…We really have no idea what’s going to happen. Sort of a crapshoot. I’m happy with the speech though.”

A reporter noted that the campaign has been distributing fliers to Berliners to drum up attendance.

“Why don’t you guys go out and distribute some fliers?” Obama asked. “Is that a conflict for you guys?”

Joked a cable news correspondent: “We have been. It’s called television.”

Obama said tonight’s address will not be “a wonkish policy speech…We started working on it about two weeks ago, about two weeks ago.” The speech “was in pretty good shape a couple days ago and now we’re just kind of tooling around with it.”

Obama’s aides have been insisting this won’t be a political rally and is not a political speech, though his campaiggn is paying for the trip (excluding the Iraq and Afghanistan legs) and events are clearly being staged with the intention of making voters back in the US comfortable with the notion of Obama as a commander-in-chief, an area where he needs shoring up.

And yet Obama and his team are also sensitive to being seen as presumptuous, of acting like a president before the people have their say this November.

Did he look to the Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy speeches about Berlin for guidance when writing his own? he was asked.

“You know, they were presidents,” Obama said, ” I am a citizen. But obviously Berlin is representative of the extraodinary success of the post World War II effort to bring the continent together and the West together and then later to bring the East and the West together so, so I think it’s a natural place to talk about it.”

Does he see the speech as a way to describe how he could improve that relationship as president?

“No,” Obama said. “I’m just giving a speech.”

In English, he noted.

“My German is not real good,” he said. “I can speak Bahasi Indonesian but I don’t think…there would be a lot of appeal to that.”

Would you describe this as a campaign speech tonight? another reporter asked.

“As opposed to?” Obama replied.

You’re in a campaign and you’re giving a speech, replied the reporter. Would it be okay to describe it as a campaign speech?

“The people in the crowd aren’t voters,” Obama said, “so in that sense its not designed to get them to the polls. You know, its not a political rally. Hopefully it will be viewed as a substantive articulation of the relationship I’d like to see beteen the US and Europe.”

Audiences back in the US will be watching as well, though, right? he was asked.

“I’m hoping to communicate across the Atlantic about the relationship and how we can build on it,” he said.

He added that “there’s no doubt that part of what I want to communicate on both sides of the Atlantic is the enormous potential of us for restoring a strong sense of coming together.”

Obama said he was not surprised by the international reaction to his world tour.

“What I think I anticipated was that the world is keely interested in this election,” he said. “And I think they are hungry for a sense of where America is going so certainly there is a curiosity there as well.”

Obama noted that in a break from his whirlwind schedule, “we’ve got some down time tonight. What are you guys gonna do in Berlin? Huh? Huh? You guys got any big. plans? …I’ve never been to Berlin, so…I would love to tour around a little bit.”

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And this final note the MSM won’t bother telling you when you see the [throngs] of people at Hussein’s feet in Berlin (much like they didn’t at his recent over-populated ralley in Oregon)

Via Noel Sheppard at newsbusters

Will Media Report Concert Before Obama’s Berlin Speech?

Remember back in May when media gushed and fawned over a huge crowd in Portland, Oregon — supposedly gathered to hear the words of Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama — but chose not to report the free concert given before his speech?

Well, it has been learned that before the presumptive Democrat nominee spoke to a crowd in Berlin Thursday, two popular German acts — reggae artist Patrice and rock band Reamonn — entertained the gathering audience.

Will media report this tonight, or just gush and fawn over the huge crowd again?

While you ponder, here’s what was reported by Spiegel Online moments ago (h/t Hot Air and Gateway):

++ Pop Concert for Obama Fans ++

6:33 p.m.: The tens of thousands of Obama fans are being entertained as they await the senator. The reggae musician Patrice kicked things off, followed by the rock band Reamonn.

I’m sure this will be part of ALL media reports concerning this speech…not!