Drink and Drive

On a road trip to Poland yesterday I asked the driver of the car, Dino as the case was, whether I could finish my beer in the car.  He looked at me, surprised, and sad, “Yeah, of course!”  

As it turns out not only are passengers allowed to consume alcohol in a moving vehicle, but drivers are as well – as long as they are below the legal limit.  Which, if you think about it, actually makes sense.  Dino said that you often see business men on the way home from work having a beer as they drive.  I can’t wait to see that.

Obama in Berlin

Just about 23 hours ago they opened the gates to allow the first spectators to gather at the foot of the Victory Column, facing away from the Brandenburger Tor – the originally desired location – to listen to the presidential candidate for the democratic party speak.  And gather they did – 200,000 of “them,” by some estimates.  

And if you were to look to the American media it would seem that “they” loved it.  In the Los Angeles Times the headline read “Obama’s Berlin speech appears to resonate with crowd.”  The San Francisco Chronicle goes so far as to suggest a “Rapturous reception for Obama in Berlin.”

But if you were to listen to a more reliable source (me), you would realize that this was not exactly the case.  I was there.  I was “them.”  And I was in the part of the crowd that you didn’t see on television.  You have to realize, see, that the people closest to the stage were the people that had in fact arrived multiple hours in advance of the speech to secure that position.  That is crazy.  By extension, those people are crazy.  Or, perhaps fanatical is a gentler way to put it.  Then we could rewrite the San Francisco Chronicle’s headline to read “Obama fanatics give Obama a Rapturous reception in Berlin”.  Well, duh.

The part of the crowd that I was in could only see Obama on a distant video screen (and I was probably in approximately the mid-point of the crowd).  This was the crowd that had arrived at ten to seven for a seven o’clock speech.  These were the normal people; people who were interested in Obama and wanted to see him in person.  These people were disappointed.

Like when you fork over 10 dollars to go see a movie, these people were definitely willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt.  Just as you hope you enjoy the movie, they wanted to like Obama, they wanted to be impressed.  These people weren’t impressed.

They first became confused when Obama started talking about the generosity of the US Marshall plan.  There seemed to be a collective “Jesus, not this again” in the air.  And I don’t blame them, it is kind of like your friend suggesting you should show more gratitude toward him/her because of the fact that their grandfather once lent your grandfather twenty dollars.  Not only is it no longer relevant, but it’s self-servingly disingenuous.

Then came the “shadow of communism” segment.  People started looking at each other at this point; “This is Obama?”  Sure there were some clapping, but it felt like clapping out of relief: “Well at least that made sense”.  The biggest applause – other than the end of the speech – was when he said we needed a world peace without nuclear weapons.  But that applause died out when it became apparent that he didn’t really mean for everyone to get rid of their nuclear weapons but for the spread of nuclear weapons to be stopped. So what began as a statement that everyone supported turned into a veiled threat against Iran.  More looking around.

His statements about terror drew no claps.  His comment that “nations needed to join together” had people on the verge of clapping until, in listing the two reason for this necessity, he put ensuring security ahead of advancing humanity. Sighs.

When the speech ended – after a brief thirty minutes – there was clapping but no excitement.  Obama talks a lot about hope, and people had gone in hoping for a hero.  Hoping for a politician who actually believed in the same things they did; who wasn’t afraid of being idealistic.  When they left that hope had receded into an “at least he’s better than McCain” sentiment.  Oh, well.  Not this time.  Another 50% movie on the tomato meter.