That was the joke headline a Boston Globe writer named Kirk Scharfenberg placed atop a 1980 editorial about a speech by President Jimmy Carter, thinking it would be removed before it was printed. But it wasn’t found and fixed until tens of thousands of papers had been printed.
Pity Mr. Scharfenberg is no longer with us. Because his memorable gaffe is the perfect heading for President Obama’s performance yesterday in Berlin, whence he delivered his usual bromides about peace with justice and the danger of nuclear arms. The muted crowd says it all: just 4,500 people, all carefully invited.
Normally it would be unfair to judge a president’s remarks by their reception rather than by the substance. But not in Obama’s case. Because this is the flip side to the frenzy he generated five years ago, when he went to Berlin as a candidate and spoke to an adoring crowd of 200,000.
Back then, Obama was a “rock star.” He spoke to the masses as a “citizen of the world.” Most coverage passed over the substance, which seemed to be that if we all came together in a global Kumbaya moment, AIDS would be defeated, the people of Bangladesh fed, the slaughter in Darfur ended, nuclear arms abolished, Muslim extremism put to rest and so on.
Now Obama has returned as president. For most men, that would only make him more powerful. But the diminished crowds and enthusiasm parallel the strained ties with allies, not to mention the general disappointment that his personality hasn’t been enough to deliver the “hope and change” he’d promised.
In fairness to President Obama, it’s not that his Berlin speech yesterday was any more mushy than the one in 2008. It’s just that the first time around, so many chose not to notice.