BO in Berlin, Germany.

Barack Obama spoke in front of a crowd of 300 thousand people (give and take) in Berlin, Germany. Almost as many as in the Annual Gay Parade. How about that? Let's stand still for a sec and think about it. BO is not even a President yet. He sure acts Presidential, no doubt. And, in honesty, he does this quite well. His Church Minister preaching style, repeating keywords sentence after sentence (he mentioned the 'wall' more often than Pink Floyd) seemed to turn Fritz flocks into collective hysteria. And all this while addressing hundreds of thousands attendees who don't even have the right to vote for him.

Before him real US Presidents speeched here with John 'Ich bin ein Berliner' Kennedy and Ronny 'Mr. Gorby, tear down that Wall' Reagan. These folks were at least heads of the most powerful nation of the world at the time they spoke in Berlin. And Berlin actually had a dividing wall then. Barack is the first one who ever tried this without being President and without any real walls to take the piss at. Strange... Bizarre! Unglaublich!

On the other hand, in Plutarch's Lives style... can you imagine a candidate for the Presidency of the EU Commission appearing on Fifth Avenue or the Central Park (to avoid causing... gridlocks) and talk to a crowd of more than... four? Do you see Jose Manuel (from Lisbon, not Barcelona) Baroso doing that? You must be shittin' me! Not even a stray dog would show-up. Maybe Tony 'Kiss-ass' Blair might manage to get a thousand souls in Central Park... yep, he might! Of whom, about a hundred were security officers. And another 300 were Broadway extras that were offered a chance to earn an extra buck. For clapping their hands each time Tony mentioned 'freedom fighters' or 'patriotic'. Once we paid Maggie 'iron teets' Thatcher 25K (USD) for a half hour keynote speech during our annual user meeting in Dallas, TX. That's the kinda venue you typically invite retired PMs, Generals, TV anchors, heroic astronauts (the Apollo 13 dudes we had once) and comedians paid handsomely to entertain the troops (those unfortunate buyers of our software products... but that's another story).

One of the reasons is of course that European 'leaders', like the current Chairman of the European Commission, our highest rank Mandarin, tiny little 'Ze Pedro' from Lisbon, Portugal, are emptier than hot-air baloons and have really very little to say. Another reason is that top functions of the European Federal Government are insignificant puppet jobs for retired politicians. In the United 'States' of Europe it's the States that have the power. European Central Government is still today a huge joke. Nevertheless, European citizens (Germans for that matter) proved once more they are much more interested in what a typical 'American Dream' Presidential Candidate has to say than attending similar events by their own Chancellor or Mr. Baroso (who is he?); aren't we Europeans full of sh*t?!