German Press Agog Over Obama

[DogPoundPup]

If Senator John McCain’s campaign aides are envious of all the press coverage from the American media corps traveling with his rival, Senator Barack Obama, on his overseas trip, they’d be clenching their teeth even more if they were reading the German press today.

The level of coverage of the Obama visit has been gushing, to say the least. The Die Zeit Web site is live blogging the visit every few minutes, and even has this dialogue between Senator Obama and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier:

DPA reports that Steinmeier greeted Obama with the words: ‘How’s it going?’ The daily Suddeutsche goes further, reporting that Obama then replied, ‘Hello.’

Die Zeit remarks with some surprise that Americans seem to be paying less attention to the visit than Germans are.

It notes that a full 80 percent of respondents to an online poll by N-TV agreed that the media hubbub was “too much.”

Yet most of them also acknowledged that they were watching it all.

There was a similar breathless nature to this item from a live blog at the Web site of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Frankfurt daily:

Foreign Ministry, Blue Hall. The second photo-op with Steinmeier lasted 15 seconds. It would have been even shorter had it not been for an American who approached Obama as he exited, to thrust his (the senator’s) book under his nose and ask him to sign it. ‘Did he say anything?’ asked one photographer in the scrum.

When no one replied, he asked, ‘Did he breathe?’

And the Web site of the Berliner Morgenpost noted that ahead of his much-awaited speech in the German capital, Obama — who in Israel had said he was so tired he could fall asleep on his feet — nonetheless spent time in the fitness center of the Hotel Ritz Carlton.

He was wearing a T-shirt, black sweat pants and white gym shoes.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/german-press-agog-over-obama/

[Cha]

1. Thanks..I don't think "the hub bub is too much" considering

we've been freakin' starved for 8 long years.

[DogPoundPup]

3. You betcha '! n/t

[Double T]

2. EACH candidate should receive equal time and equal coverage.

If the tables were turned WE would be screaming bloody murder. All BO all the time isn't fair, just ask HRC.

[Alcibiades]

5. Not all time is equal

I'm sure that Fox News is now all Obama, all the time, but I'm not sure its coverage that helps.

Do you think Barr and Nader also deserve equal time? Sorry, but I'm not going to cry about the media covering Obama too much, particularly given their complicity letting Bush politicize 9-11, in swiftboating Kerry, in not reporting on the fraud in Ohio and Florida, in not reporting the unconstitutionality of the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore.

If you think McCain's not getting enough coverage, perhaps you could offer his campaign some advice. Maybe a nice letter recommending that he do something newsworthy? I've been listening to the radio, and I hear all McCain, all the time. If it bothers you, do what I do, which is to change the channel, or start reading a nice book--or, better yet, go knock on some doors for Obama!

[BlooInBloo]

4. It's so refreshing to have the BEST of America on display for a change.