04:02 pm
Ich bin ein Käse Auslieferungaffen essend
I’ve had been planning to blog on the whole Obama at Brandenburg gate issue, but Marbury managed to sum up the my concerns pretty well:
Audacious, heavily symbolic gestures like this make me queasy (Gordon Brown did something similar, on a smaller scale, and look how that worked out). It’s the kind of thing that can seem brilliant when cooked up at a strategy meeting, and genius when it’s actually executed. But if things start to go wrong afterwards, for whatever reason, it’s the first thing critics will point to and shout “hubris“!
Here he is, not even president yet, and he wants us to think of him as Ronald Reagan demanding that Gorbachev tear down the wall. Why does he even have to make a speech whilst in Europe? What’s wrong with a few handshakes and an eight-course dinner?
Let me put it another way: it is an unfortunate fact of life that many Americans are convinced that all Europeans a) are secretly French; b) hate us; c) want us to fail; and d) to use The Simpsons’ classic phrase, are “cheese-eating surrender monkeys.”
So let’s just say I have my doubts about how the Obama speech is going to play back home.
Think I’m wrong? Back in October 2004, the Guardian (U.K.) thought it would be peachy to encourage Brits and other non-Americans to write to folks in Clark County, Ohio and encourage voters there to support John Kerry. To say it was a disaster is an understatement. Here are some examples of the responses they got:
Have you not noticed that Americans don’t give two shits what Europeans think of us? Each email someone gets from some arrogant Brit telling us why to NOT vote for George Bush is going to backfire, you stupid, yellow-toothed pansies … I don’t give a rat’s ass if our election is going to have an effect on your worthless little life. I really don’t. If you want to have a meaningful election in your crappy little island full of shitty food and yellow teeth, then maybe you should try not to sell your sovereignty out to Brussels and Berlin, dipshit. Oh, yeah - and brush your goddamned teeth, you filthy animals.
Consider this: stay out of American electoral politics. Unless you would like a company of US Navy Seals - Republican to a man - to descend upon the offices of the Guardian, bag the lot of you, and transport you to Guantanamo Bay, where you can share quarters with some lonely Taliban shepherd boys.
Real Americans aren’t interested in your pansy-ass, tea-sipping opinions. If you want to save the world, begin with your own worthless corner of it.
I just read a hilarious proposal to involve your readership in the upcoming US presidential election. At least, I’m hoping that it is genius satire. Nothing will do more to undermine the Democratic cause in Ohio than having patronising Brits wander around Clark County telling people how to vote.
THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS HAVE SPENT TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS PROTECTING THE PEOPLES OF THE EU, AND WHAT DO WE GET IN RETURN. BETRAYAL, BETRAYAL, BETRAYAL. I HAVE BEEN TO YOUR COUNTRY, THE COUNTRY OF MY ANCESTORS, AND I KNOW WHY THEY LEFT.
I used to visit the UK every year. I love the history and culture of your country. But after I heard about your campaign to influence our elections, I’ve decided that neither myself, nor my family will ever visit again. I’m offended by your campaign and because of it, I’m remembering more of the negative aspects I’ve seen in the UK than the positive ones. Though I still love the castles!
Oh yes, the castles. Gonna miss the castles. But hey, our honor is at stake! In any case, the public relations fallout was pretty bad. And they didn’t even get the result they wanted: that November, Clark County went for Bush 51-49.
So please Senator Obama, think about it. Skip the speech now and give it next year on November 9, 2009 — the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
P.S. Ten points to the first person to translate the Post title.