American Press Lambastes the "Rockstar Coronation"

The excitement about Barack Obama is also reaching the U.S. news media. The major networks sent their news anchors to Berlin. At home, there were many scathing commentaries regarding the hype around the candidate, and even some about his foreign hosts.

The phrase “mosh-pit” usually applies only to friends of hard rock music. It means a crowd of concert attendees who dance wildly around each other in a circle, shoving each other a little around the dance floor.

The financial newspaper “Investor’s Business Daily” (IBD) has now caught sight of a “mosh-pit of anti-Americanism” in Germany. Because there is hardly a country that has such an open aversion to the United States these days, it is not a surprise that Barack Obama delivered his only public speech in Germany during his European trip. “Heck, it was a battle just to get him, a candidate for the highest office in the land, to pin an American flag to his lapel. No wonder they cheer Obama in Germany.”

Also because the IBD is not exactly a cornerstone of American journalism and the accusations are extraordinarily sharp, other American commentators are also expressing anxiety about Obama’s highly visible foreign tour. They are somewhat surprised that the largest American television networks ABC, NBC, and CBS have all dispatched their major news anchors to cover the trip of a man who up to this point is only a candidate.

This kind of attention has been denied to Obama’s Republican opponent John McCain not only on trips. According to an analysis by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), Obama was covered much more in the American news media between June 9th and July 13th. Tom Rosenstiel, director of the PEJ, is critical of this imbalance. “It doesn’t matter how understandable this coverage is in view of the newness of the candidate and the historical nature of Obama’s candidacy. The bottom line is that it is probably not fair to McCain.”

“Time to go to Vietnam”

Conservative news media outlets, in particular, are finding fault that Obama would distinguish himself as an expert on international foreign policy during his European trip, which he isn’t at this stage. The “Wall Street Journal” compared the early foreign policy experiences of previous American Presidents, from Nixon to Clinton. George W. Bush, who had a similar lack of foreign policy experience at a similar stage of his career, was left out of this analysis. The ironic conclusion is that Obama’s foreign policy experience has energized itself mainly by “one single week of travel amidst the news media frenzy.”

For the “Omaha World Herald,” the dispatch of the television news anchors is really “a typical example of the out of touch behavior of the national news media.” Perhaps the time has come for John McCain to travel to Vietnam once again “to visit the places where he suffered for Americans.” By doing so, the former prisoner of war could test the fairness of the news anchors. “If they are traveling to Europe for Obama’s rockstar coronation, they should also accompany McCain for reconciliation with a country which could quickly become an important trading partner.”

The “Chicago Sun-Times” was also critical and said that the message behind Obama’s widely acclaimed speech in Berlin was clear. “Elect Obama and the world will love America again.” But the Americans would decide who they want as President and Commander-in-Chief, either a “young, untested, inexperienced political phenomenon or a political veteran who has knowledge of complex world affairs and has survived the ravages of war.”

Many American newspapers, however, are definitely writing more rationally about the trip without omitting its associated controversies. The “Washington Post” reported that the staff of the US Embassy in Berlin had been forbidden to attend the Obama speech. The American Foreign Service Association, a union for diplomats, had already protested against the edict.