Benjamin Perry writes in Anglofritz:
Berlin-based Scottish expat, culturist and opinionator Nick Currie, better known as the musician Momus, elects Barack Obama today as the next President of Europe. The position just opened up, Momus says, after French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this month withdrew his essential support of Tony Blair for the job.
He also quotes Roger Cohen in the New York Times, who describes Obama as an online phenomenon, jumping national borders and “stirring as much buzz in Berlin as he does back home.” Well, that’s quite a bit of an exaggeration, but there is probably indeed more popular support for Barack Obama than for Tony Blair for the position of EU President. (See Contention About the New “EU President”)
Obama is considering a visit to Berlin, says Karsten Voigt, the German government’s envoy for German-American relations, according to DW World. I doubt that Obama will indeed visit Germany during the hot election campaign. He already has won more than 80% of votes from the US expats living in Germany and registered as Democrats, I believe.
It would be great, however, if Obama would take time of from the campaign trail and visit Europe in order to put to rest the criticism from Steve Clemons (and myself) regarding his Lack of Real Interest in Transatlantic Cooperation:
As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations’ Subcommittee on Europe, Obama has held zero hearings — at least that is how the record appears to me. Compare this to the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe, which is having constant hearings — or to the Senate Subcommittee’s work before Obama became Chair — or to a comparative commitment of Hillary Clinton.
David Vickrey wants Obama to visit Germany for another legitimate reason:
It would indeed be a refreshing change to see crowds of Germans to turn out to cheer an American leader rather than to protest.
Cross-posted from Atlantic Review
Joerg Wolf is founder and editor-in-chief of the Atlantic Review (http://atlanticreview.org), a blog on transatlantic relations sponsored by the German Fulbright Alumni Association.
He currently works as editor-in-chief of the Open Think Tank atlantic-community.org in Berlin.
Joerg studied political science at the Free University of Berlin and worked as a research associate for the International Risk Policy project at the Free University’s Center for Transatlantic Foreign and Security Policy. He has been a Fulbright scholar at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Washington DC and has worked for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Cairo and in Berlin.