Delightful little tidbit from a BBC Correspondent in Berlin

I was listening to BBC World Service yesterday afternoon and they did a nice piece on Obama's speech. Actually interviewing Germans who were there, playing clips of the speech, discussing German, American and international views of the situation, etc.

At one point the anchor asks the correspondent what McCain's natural allies in Germany, the Christian Democrats, were thinking at this time. I was so tickled to hear the reporter say that actually McCain's supposed political compatriots, the conservatives in Germany, were rather taken with Obama. He said that Angela Merkel has said aloud she is impressed with Obama.

I'm going to guess she knows he wouldn't try to give her a shoulder rub in a summit meeting.

The one downside to the report was when they commented on McCain's nose being out of joint because of all the media attention on Obama. The reporter said basically that Obama's career was not as widely known as McCain's so people were interested in learning more about Obama. Little wide of the mark on that one in my opinion.

Just curious.

Not that what the reporter said was inaccurate, but that there was more to it when it comes to allocating media coverage to candidates. Given the actions of American MSM I don't think it is fair to say that we the people are determining coverage simply because we want to learn more about Obama.

The Germans were simply curious because they didn't know who Obama was and so 200,000 showed up to find out. But here's the problems with that stupid statement. Why would simply curious people wave American flags and cheer? Why would they wait three hours simply to find out about an American candidate when they could just as easily looked up the information on the internet or hear it on the news.

No, "200,000 Germans show up simply because they didn't know who Obama was" makes no sense when you think about it.

O gets waved flags, just like Bill Clinton did when he traveled. bush gets himself burned in effigy and has to hide from the mobs on a boat or tiny island. Big difference!