Idea for Brandenburg speech scrapped

Obama has instead picked another German venue to deliver one of his fluff pieces:

July 18 (Bloomberg) — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will give a speech at the Victory Column in central Berlin, avoiding the Brandenburg Gate after a political spat broke out over plans to speak there, Berliner Zeitung said.

A stage will be set up at the column, a 19th-century fluted structure that lies at the opposite end of a tree-lined boulevard from the Brandenburg Gate, the newspaper said. The campaign will announce the plans for July 24 today, it said.

But the Brandenburg Gate will still be visible during the speech:

An appearance at the Victory Column, capped by its trademark gilded angel, will still give the Illinois senator the Brandenburg Gate as a backdrop in the distance.

Clever.

Even more clever: McCain’s implication that Obama is a Socialist:

In an interview with the Kansas City Star, John McCain says Barack Obama was labeled as having the “most extreme” record in the Senate.

[…]

“That’s his voting record,” McCain responds. “All I said was his voting record, and that is more to the left than the announced Socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.”

“Do you think hes a socialist, Barack Obama?” Helling asks.

McCain responds with a with a shrug, “I don’t know.”

I haven’t seen the ObamaOutrage-ometer spike today over this, I suspect because they know if they respond with indignancy and slam McCain what surely was meant to be a backhanded insult, they’ll have to explain themselves to Sanders, who can be counted on to always vote in lock step with the other more liberal members of the House, as to why they found the remark “insulting” … and perhaps explain themselves to Howard Dean as well, who lets his Socialist side slip out on occasion (scroll).

Prior:

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