Bush blamed for Merkel opposition to Brandenburg date for Obama
German newspapers are carrying the story that Angela Merkel is against Barack Obama being allowed to make a speech at the Brandenburg Gate because she has been put under pressure by President Bush to prevent him from doing so. Merkel has refused to comment on this - and the Obama camp are maintaining a dignified silence on the subject - but German newspapers and politicians are up in arms about it.
A report in Germany's conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper said that one of Ms Merkel's top advisers had been criticised by a member of the Bush team over the planned Obama visit during the G8 summit in Japan.And Obama's popularity is very high in Germany, with many Germans comparing him favourably with John F Kennedy. Which makes Merkel's actions all the more odd.
"Christoph Heusen, the Chancellor's foreign policy spokesman, was approached by an adviser from the Bush team and ticked off about Obama's plans," the paper wrote. Ms Merkel's government refused to comment on the allegations yesterday, but opposition politicians went on the offensive. Klaus Wowereit, Berlin's governing Social Democrat mayor, who favours an Obama speech at the gate, warned: "Ms Merkel must be careful not to let herself be used as a pawn. It might be that she received directions from President Bush in Japan."
Jürgen Trittin, the deputy leader of the Green party, accused Ms Merkel of "acting in the interests of President Bush and John McCain, who wants to continue Bush's foreign policy".
She has claimed that to allow him to speak at the Brandenburg Gate would be, somehow, endorsing him for the presidency.
"The Brandenburg Gate is too important to misuse it for internal American affairs," a spokesman said.The spokesman added that Ms Merkel had only a " limited understanding" of Mr Obama's proposals and suggested that she thought the idea of using the Brandenburg Gate would be inappropriate.
"No German candidate for high office would think of using the National Mall in Washington for a rally because it would not be seen as appropriate," the spokesman said.
Arguments as odd as the latter do seem to indicate that she is trying to find excuses not to allow this rather than speaking from any real conviction. For instance it would appear, to me at least, to be much more an endorsement of Obama's bid for the presidency to allow him to speak outside the Reichstag, and yet that is one of the alternatives on offer.
If Mr Obama cannot speak at the famous gate, he may address his European fans at Tempelhof airport, where the Berlin airlift was launched, or at Schöneberg town hall, where in 1963 President Kennedy delivered the speech that contained the famous line: "Ich bin ein Berliner". Another suggestion is that Mr Obama speak in front of the Reichstag, Germany's parliament. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton used the Brandenburg Gate to deliver speeches when they were in office.It is being reported that Merkel is already backing down and that spokespersons are saying that a "good and mutually acceptable solution" will be found.
It would appear that once again Bush gets a European into hot water in their own country by putting pressure on them to toe the Republican party line.
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