This is Our Moment - Barak Obama

"This is our moment." Try it out. How does it make you feel? Does it get your patriotic juices flowing? If so, are they your American citizen patriotic juices or your citizen of the world patriotic juices?

This was the theme of the speech Barak delivered in Berlin on July 24, 2008. The democratic presidential nominee. A little over 3 months until the election and he is out trying to drum up votes in Germany. It certainly is a unique strategy. I cannot remember a presidential candidate choosing to invest campaign time with people who cannot vote him into office.

Barak has gotten a bit ahead of himself. He is calling for a global unification to attack terror and genocide. A global effort to spread peace and build economic growth. A world wide focus to "save this planet." JFK and the Gipper didn't demand the attention of the German people until they were actually president. They had a mandate from the people of America that let the world know they spoke for a nation.

What legitimacy does Barak have? Not much. He barely became the democratic nominee. No previous nominee has had to wait so long into the campaign season to be declared the parties candidate for president. Surely, he can't expect the world to rally around his call to action before the presidency has even been decided.

"People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time." Our moment to do ... what exactly? Unite behind a lot of empty rhetoric and a desire to make the world a better place? Obama doesn't actually ask us to do anything. Reagan had a pretty specific call to action. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Berlin is certainly a place with a lot of historical impact. Some of the greatest speeches are delivered to Berliners. This was not one of them. I readily admit that Obama is a charismatic speaker but, the message here was not worth the trip.