McCain's campaign spokesman just made a new very self-humiliating comment in a statement to The Nation. This time about the visitors to the Berlin speech of Barack Obama:

...failed to recognize the need to visit wounded combat troops, instead choosing to continue on with a schedule that included meeting with international leaders and fawning Germans.

Emphasis mine.

Seriously, if you are running a campaign based on experience in foreign affairs, you should be able to control your own spokespeople. I attended the Berlin speech and people were not fawning there. It was a success, yes, but there was no uncritical reception. What I noticed afterwards was that people actually started a serious debate on the different topics raised and there was no total agreement.

Barack Obama has arrived in Berlin and is greated with the most astonishing amount of excitement since the fall of the Berlin wall. My guess is that the demonstration today will be in the range of the 200.000 people who came together on September 14, 2001 to show their solidarity after the attacks of 9/11.

I myself will jump on the train in a few hours to go to Berlin. I am really excited about watching the speech and as a German, I am interested to hear what he has to say and I am going to write an update later.

In any case, German media is going nuts: all news channels are having a constant coverage.

For some impressions of Barack Obama in Berlin, check the FAZ Please note the modern art in the chancellery. I think it is nice

And the frontpages of German Newspapers: here My favorite one is the taz (image nr.3).

So what do you expect?

Apparently, Barack Obama will hold a campaign ralley in the German capital Berlin. As most of you know there was a debate whether he should be allowed to give a speech in front of the Brandenburg gate right on the newly finished Pariser Platz. Charles Krauthammer, as BarbinMd correctly pointed out, turned the Brandenburg gate into a holy shrine, which "you earn".

Well, as a German, let me point out: it is a holy shrine. Which is why had it wrapped for 4 years with t-mobile advertisment only to have it repoend by Bill Clinton in front of 200.000 celebrating Berlin citizens. But anyway, anybody who has lived to see the Berlin wall, anybody who has been to West Berlin while is was an island of hope in an ocean of oppression, knows what it means to be able to walk through it and why it was there that on the night of November 9th, 1989 people stormed the wall. And it was not because of Ronald Reagan, whose speech is not part of the collective German memory.

Hillary Clintons remarks "whatever happens, we will be fine" can be interpreted in a lot of ways. I prefer to frame it this way: She is beginning to gracefully bow out of the race. But any exit of such an alpha-candidate needs a soundtrack, so I searched Youtube to find some examples, and I would like to know what you think about it.

I also can't stop thinking that it is about time she xeroxes herself into the history books - unfortunately we will never finde out who she really was.

Here in Hanover, Germany, Albanians are celebrating by driving through the city, waving their flags. I just hope we are witnessing the last act of the Balkan crisis and not the first shots of the nexe Balkan war.

From BBC:

Kosovo's parliament has unanimously endorsed a declaration of independence from Serbia, in an historic session.The declaration, read by Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, said Kosovo would be a democratic country that respected the rights of all ethnic communities. The US and a number of EU countries are expected to recognise Kosovo on Monday.Serbia has threatened Kosovo with diplomatic and economic sanctions, but not force. Its ally, Russia, also opposes Kosovan independence.

The American politcal culture has become a part of our European Entertainment industry. In an age in which the best remembered presidential speech has been delivered by fictional president Whitmore on the eve of an imminent alien invasion, I as a European wondered for a long time whether it is time from an outside viewer to weigh in on the Democrats complicated process in picking a presidential nominee. For most of the last months, I switched to tv-shopping channels instead of getting re-involved in American presidential politics.

But this time is over: After waching the dismal performance of Democrats in the face of Bill Maher questioning, and after learning that the GOP is already casting a professional actor, I want to raise the independent viewers voice.

Seeing Iraqia celebration of the football victory and the carnage that happend when militias decided to bomb them, I got remembered on a fact I nearly forgot about the U.S. militarys planning for the war in Iraq: the two tons of frisbees the 1st marine division ordered for distribution among Iraqis, who were supposed to celebrate the U.S. soldiers as liberators.

On those frisbees, the word 'friendship' was printed in English and Arabic: hoe naive, absurd and uninformed... Iraq never turned out to be a frisbee country anyway, if anything it became a boomerang.

As a source for this story, I have to use a diary I wrote in April 2004, citing a George Will column and a quote from Spirit of America blog, which are no longer online.

I figured that - all the tragic beside - that was the absurdest decision in the preparation for this ill-fated war... the 1st marine division should have brought body armor instead.

Khalid El-Masri was an ordinary German with Lebanese roots. He lived a rather low profile life until the end of 2003 when he was illegally abducted by the CIA in Skopje as part of the U.S. rendition programme.

What happend then was traumatizing for him and today he was send into a mental health facility after trying to burn down a supermarket in Southern Germany.

His case is a classic example how the policy of rendition and torture the Bush administration so entdusiastically persuit, failed.

So far this year, I abstained from blogging most of the time. I did something better: I got myself elected to my first public office. And I still can't believe it...

I had been quite active on blogs after I watched Howard Dean's speech to the Democratic National Committee Winter meeting in February 2003 out of curiosity. Even thogh his voice came out of completely different political context, they shook me. It was the 5th year of red-green and Gerhard Schröder in Germany and I was a frustrated German Social Democrat with a ten year membership record on all levels of the youth organization Jusos and on local to state-wide levels of the SPD.

I think following Dean's campaign closely and in this process signing on to this site in November 2003 was an act of political escapism and a good lesson. After he was brought down in a concerted attack of the other candidates and mainstream American media, I felt, I had to move on and had to do something new.

For the record: I am a German citizen and history student and have been contributing at dailykos since November 2003. As far as I know, no member of my family was involved in war crimes or crimes against humanity. In fact, my grandfather was incarcarated by the Nazis in various prisons and concentration camps from 1933 to 1945. I am living in a city which was 85 percent destroyed at end of the war and just 30 km away from one of the most notorious concentration camps of the Hitler era: Bergen Belsen. I have been volunteering in memorial centers at concentration camps sites and I hate National Socialism as much as I am able to hate a polical movement.

I am sick and tired of the disgusting comments by president Bush and other members of administration trying to frame the 2006 election along the line: "are you for or against for or against fighting Hitler?".

The hate against George McGovern is so stupid, it is hard to read it again.

Confrontng his critics, McGovern wrote a column in the Washington Post during the 2004 presidential campaign,  about it. That time, I posted a diary about it. I link to it because the story is no longer on the website of the WP.

Imagine for a moment that an innocent U.S. American citizen...

...would be arrested without any court order in a country where he plans to spend his holidays.

...would be transferred to a German military base in Afghanistan, without any information for his relatives.

...would be beaten and tortured for 5 months on that base.

...then would be recognized as wrongly identified.

...would then be dropped off in the middle of nowhere on the Balkans (you can also imagine a random carribean country) at night.

Imagine further that the German ambassador would then visit the U.S. home secretary, confessing the mistake, but ask the U.S. government to keep it secret, while the poor innocent civilian is sueing, but can't get offical recognition of his story.

How would you want your government to react?

This is an outrage: Apparently, the U.S. administration has stopped the delivery of 20.000 Emergency Food Rations by Germany into the crisis area for P.R. reasons only

According to the renowned and reliable magazine Der Spiegel (in German), the U.S. government forbid the sending because of concerns the military food packages were "BSE contaminated". This is stupid: the food packages are NATO approved and clean. Unless you believe NATO (incl. the U.S.) plans to distribute mad cow disease among its troops, you can be sure, these packs are clean: which is why they are good enough for U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

According to the SPIEGEL, U.S. military officials at Pensacola suggested the administration is afraid of images showing food aid coming from Europe.

At the same time, the new American ambassador to Berlin, former Ohio Bush fundraiser William R. Timken, already thanked the German people, because "victims of Katrina are already eating the sent food".

Next time you hear anyone complains about the lack of international aid and sympathy, tell them that at least we tried.

Let me express my deepest sympathy and condolences with the victims of Hurrican Katrina. I wanted to write you, because I wanted to let you know, that you in the U.S. are not alone and that you've got friends around the world who want to help you.

Robin Cook, former British Foreign Secretary who resigned as a chief whip because he opposed the war in Iraq died today at the age of 59.

This is a terrible loss for the reasonable part of the world.

From the Guardian

May he rest in peace.

The causes of the explosions that apparently killed and wounded several people are yet unclear. The police is calling it a "major incedent"

The best thing that can be said about today's Live8 concerts is that - unlike its predescessor Live Aid - because it is free it will not give another African dictatorship easy cash to buy weapons to continue a brutal civil war.

Enthusiasm about "Africa" has become deeply rooted in western culture. But where does this Africa actually exist? In Botswana or in Tanzania? These are two functioning democracies. Or is it in Senegal? or in the Democratic Republic of Congo?

Who knows. I doubt this Africa can be located anywhere else than in the imaginatory landscape of the west, where ethno-enthusiasm blinds out a rational analyis of a continent far more complex than the easy to imagine ever repeated image of the crying hungry child. In our days the crying hungry child is also an HIV- infected orphan.

For the wrong reason, though. It hurts to see her becoming a martyr for freefom of the press. But it is funny that she finally gets some kind of punishment:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court rejected appeals Monday from two journalists who have refused to testify before a grand jury about the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.

The cases asked the court to revisit an issue that it last dealt with more than 30 years ago -- whether reporters can be jailed or fined for refusing to identify their sources.

The justices' intervention had been sought by 34 states and many news groups, all arguing that confidentiality is important in news gathering.

"Important information will be lost to the public if journalists cannot reliably promise anonymity to sources," news organizations including The Associated Press told justices in court papers.

Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and The New York Times' Judith Miller, who filed the appeals, face up to 18 months in jail for refusing to reveal sources as part of an investigation into who divulged the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Link