The presumptuousness of Barack Obama

Lynn Sweet has the scoop on the rumor that Barack Obama will be making a speech at Berlin’s Brandenburg gate sometime later this month:

WASHINGTON–A German friend passed along the news Saturday that local sources in Berlin are confirming that the Obama campaign was in contact with city authorities to discuss the possibility of presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) delivering an outdoor address in front of the Brandenburg gate. The thinking is Obama would follow in the footsteps of two very famous Cold War-era speeches of U.S. presidents speaking in Germany: JFK “Ich bin ein Berliner” and Reagan “tear down this wall.” It would probably be Obama’s only public speech during upcoming visits to Germany, France and England on a swing to include stops in Israel and Jordan. There is still no date for the trip. German news sources are reporting the Obama team is working on a visit during the “second half of this month”.

Spiegel Online International reports that an Obama visit to Berlin [t]his month “looks likely” with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

In response to this story, Jim Geraghty quips:

What would Barack Obama say at a public speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin?

“Mr. Bush, tear down this missile defense system?”

“Can’t I just finish my jelly doughnut?”

He goes on to say:

But some might find it a bit presumptuous for a candidate to speak at the site of two of the most famous foreign addresses by American presidents in recent memory.

Presumptuous? Obama? Nah.