Ich Bin Ein Wiener

Charles Krauthammer lays a 2x4 across the head of Barack Obama in his piece today entitled "Who Does Obama Think He Is?"

Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast — a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins — would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign-policy credentials.

What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final “tear down this wall” liquidation. When President Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.

Who is Obama representing? And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what George Bush 41 — who presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall but modestly declined to go there for a victory lap — called “a Europe whole and free”?

Does Obama not see the incongruity? It’s as if a German pol took a campaign trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue for a campaign speech. (The Germans have now gently nudged Obama into looking at other venues.)

Americans are beginning to notice Obama’s elevated opinion of himself. There’s nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Barack Obama is probably the worst example of the entitlement society I've ever seen. It's not enough that anyone in America, legal or otherwise, feels entitled to all sorts of government benefits and handouts. Obama has raised expectations to a whole new level - he's entitled to be president just because he is Obama and he has reached a higher plane of enlightenment.

Don't expect a serious examination of his record of achievement by those three network news anchors who will be accompanying him on his World Apology Tour. Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams will have a hard time getting through their interviews without tearing up at his Obamaness, and by the time the perky Katie Couric is done she will have thrown him her underwear and room key. It will be a tour de farce.