Rumors indicate today that President Obama is working up a schedule for June....which either at the start or finish....stops off in Berlin, where he will deliver the Kennedy speech (50 years to the day).
It was roughly a five-minute speech. The key element....fifty years ago...was that the United States was going to lay down a secondary card, after the Berlin Airlift, to indicate that it wasn't going to put West Germany down on the world's totem pole. Americans were going to be willing to puts troops and military power down to ensure West Germany stayed free.
For the most part....it was a five-star speech and didn't really change much of anything. We already had troops in Germany, and weren't planning any significant changes.
It was a speech to be a demonstration to the Germans. A five-star speech? Yeah, probably one of the ten best speeches of the century, without doubt. Short, to the point, and arousing to the crowd.
A repeat of the speech? President Obama could just repeat the words and leave it there. He could try to trump Kennedy's Berlin speech. He could simply lay out a bold new version of where the world should go.
The crowd? I'm of the mind if the weather cooperates (it's always a 50-50 thing on weather in June)....it could be a 500k person crowd. Put in bad weather? Figure closer to 250k. I'm one of those folks who ran remember a June bar-b-q from twenty years ago where it was too cold except around the fire itself to stand.
Will Gitmo matter? Well....most Germans know it's still an issue. The drone stuff? It's turning into a negative anchor right now. The Aghan war? Well....it's still going but there's an end to the mess in sight.
I anticipate that this will likely be the last swing through Germany for President Obama for the remaining four years, and he'll try to deliver a Kennedy-dramatic piece.
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