It was worth swilling expensive beer and slow-mo bumping-and-grinding through security lines to get within 30 meters (that’s 30 yards) of the Großer Stern—the base of the Victory Column rather than an object “beside” the column as some of the wires had it last week. Just a few bodies from the security tent (almost there!) one unfortunate lady who couldn’t take the heat and human pressure any longer fainted right in front of us. We waved over security, who promptly hauled her away to be freshened up behind the checkpoint—one good way to get through faster! The U2-lite band that opened for Obama’s set sounded pretty and soaring as long as you didn’t listen too close, which was kinda hard considering it’s blasting at jet engine decibels all along the Straße der 17.Juni. (Raemonn had a hit three years ago with the song Supergirl. The singer’s Irish (Bono?) and the band’s from Kreuzberg, my German Kiezfreund informed me, making it that much harder to understand why they sucked so hard.) And wow, talk about a glittering phalanx of cameras and journalists! There were so many journalists on hand that on the way back our group got interviewed by the Wall Street Journal on the left side and by a Brazilian newspaper reporter on the right. Seriously, that’s a lot of coverage. Poor John McCain got one single reporter at his press conference last week. And was reduced yesterday to munching Bratwurst at Schmidt’s German Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. I was doing the same thing: for some reason the Bratwurst vended yesterday along the street was excellent. Maybe I was just really hungry. And maybe I’ve been in Germany too long, but damn I love me some greasy Bratwurst slathered with mustard served up in a tiny bun. Really, I do. I digress.

Obama’s body man, Reggie Love, could be seen checking out the stage scene before returning to the back. A single black helicopter hovered above, flying backwards. Sunglassed secret service agents were posted around the periphery. It was tense and, er, hopeful. Obama’s approach to the stage was a dramatic lope: a long walk from the back to the front edge of the Stern, greeted by loudly polite applause, if not at total rockstar level. I haven’t seen that much American flag-waving in while. Obviously, I’ve been out of Ohio for a time. His 25-minute speech managed to be heavy and light at the same time, but perhaps because I’ve heard a lot of this hope and unity and dignity talk before, this time interspersed with falling walls (17 times!) and airlift metaphors customised for the Berlin crowd, I couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit let down. I’ve bought into some of the messianic aura already, I feel. Maybe it’s that my sarcastic (yet hopeful) friends and I couldn’t help commenting, snarkishly, on every other sentence. Take that pollution-making Beijing!

Obama did cover a lot of ground and touched, humming bird style, on crucial issues like Afghanistan and the need to eliminate nuclear weapons. I didn’t disagree with a single thing he said and hells yes Muslims and Christians and Jews should be standing together, getting along and we should all be joining hands and sing around the campfire together. That is true and we should push for that world. That’s the world that I thought we were heading for in the 90s and one that got tragically derailed in 2001 and rolled down the hill in the years thereafter. I dearly hope that Obama can help make that world happen and I believe he’s the right guy to push us in that direction. I’m not talking about the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, I’m just talking about a better world. Obama has the stuff to inspire people to be better, to be less cyncial, to aspire to their higher, enlightened selves, if you will. He can do that, but he didn’t perform any miracles yesterday, seething masses or not. His worldwide popularity would certainly help get things done, but it won’t happen by magic. I still have no doubt he’s the right man for the job. But he might wanna switch up his talking points a little. Assessment: Barack Obama, great man, not Jesus.

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