A Consequential President by Michael D'Antonio

Author:Michael D'Antonio
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Obama’s intention, as he contemplated turning the ship of state, would be to make adjustments in ways that would not be so disruptive that they created uncertainty or unforeseen problems. His American constituents would want to be reassured on terrorism, trade, and their country’s preeminence in world affairs. However, all presidents also serve a global constituency that includes world leaders and ordinary citizens who expect the United States to serve as a bulwark of economic and geopolitical stability. His global constituents generally hoped for a more inclusive, intelligent, and nuanced style of leadership. Even before he became his party’s nominee, Obama expressed toughness on matters of security, and in his one major address abroad as candidate Obama, he struck the tone that his audience, weary of Bush, hoped to hear.

* * *

On a golden Thursday afternoon in July 2008, people began streaming into Berlin’s Tiergarten park and claiming places in view of the massive Siegessäule, or Victory Column, which was completed in 1873 and looms 220 feet over the grass, trees, and gardens. It was a predominately young crowd—tattooed, pierced, and peaceful—which came bearing guitars and picnic food and turned the blocked-off Strasse des 17. Juni into a festival ground.

As the crowd grew to two hundred thousand strong, Barack Obama had been jetting to Berlin from meetings in both Israel and the Palestinian city of Ramallah. (He also spent time with Benjamin Netanyahu, who was, at the time, not prime minister but Likud Party leader.) A long and packed schedule had left Obama so exhausted that he had told Netanyahu he could fall asleep standing up. On the flight from Tel Aviv he had tried to tamp down expectations, telling reporters that he doubted he would be greeted by “a million screaming Germans.” Such was the rock star quality of Obama’s popularity that in less than a year he had gone from an unknown figure on the world stage to a headliner whose biggest problem was the widely held belief that he could draw larger crowds than the Rolling Stones.

When he finally appeared in Berlin, he glided across a pathway carpeted in blue to stand behind a podium that looked out on the crowd where many people wore OBAMA TSUNAMI T-shirts and stood with fellow members of local Obama Clubs that had formed across Germany. The weary Obama’s performance was not one of his best. He started slowly, and somewhat quietly, but with a humility that was pitch-perfect for those seeking an anti-Bush. “Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for president, but as a citizen—a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.”

Much of what Obama offered in Berlin would have been considered boilerplate in the United States, but it was fresh to his German audience. He spoke of a great-grandfather who had herded goats in Africa, a black father who split time between the United States and Kenya, and a white mother who shouldered much of the burden of raising him alone.

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