Let's also remember that the Tea Party event was a rushed together event held when most people were at work while the Zero speech was a much heralded event that was hoped to shift the news cycle off the scandals...
ZitatWhen Barack Obama gave a speech in Berlin in 2008, he drew a crowd of 200,000. Wednesday's speech at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate was a little less popular. White House pool reporter Elmar Jakobs estimated the crowd at only 4,500.
Obama's Berlin crowd may also have been smaller than the crowd of several thousand who turned out for the Tea Party Patriots' 'Audit the IRS' rally and for a rally against the immigration bill held at the Capitol on Wednesday. One unofficial estimate put the crowd size at 7,000 to 10,000 at its peak. Both rallies lasted several hours.
Rex Reed raves: " Frank Cannon is fascinating, informative, engaging and heartbreaking stuff." — New York Observer
CNN's Suzanne Malveaux called President Obama's Brandenburg Gate speech "historic" on Wednesday afternoon, while a CNN headline later proclaimed that he "speaks to the history books." This despite the President speaking to a crowd of less than 5,000 at the same location where he addressed 200,000 Germans five years before.
"President Obama calls for freedom, equal opportunity and a reduction in the world's nuclear stockpiles. This is in a historic speech in Germany," touted anchor Suzanne Malveaux. "The images are awesome. You can't be at the Brandenburg Gate without harkening back to so many moments in history," hyped anchor Ashleigh Banfield.
Below is a transcript of the segments, which aired on June 19 on CNN Newsroom:
ZitatASHLEIGH BANFIELD: Back in Berlin, Barack Obama in the footsteps of Reagan and JFK, taking a stand against nuclear weapons, urging Russia to join us in slashing nuclear arsenals.
JESSICA YELLIN, CNN chief White House correspondent: Well, Ashleigh, it is a remarkable sight to see, a U.S. president on the east side of the Brandenburg Gate, a place no president has been able to stand, no U.S. president, because the walls stood there for so many years. When Reagan came and when John F. Kennedy came, they both stood on the west side. And now that the wall is down, President Obama was able to address a crowd on the – where the Soviet bloc once took – had total control.
President Obama made remarks that both touched on, as you say, the reduction of the nuclear arsenal. He called for a reduction by one third. But he – by both U.S. and Russia. But he also more broadly talked about U.S. values, the U.S. vision for his second term around the world, and spoke to a crowd that had a very different sense of the Obama that came here five years ago.
There were such high hopes, a crowd of 200,000 that turned out to see him then. This time a crowd of less than 10,000 people, probably closer to 6,000, and that's because President Obama is – well, first of all, the hopes, you couldn't have met – his reality couldn't have met those extraordinarily exuberant expectations. But also, he's continued so many of the policies of George W. Bush, from Gitmo to drones and now NSA surveillance. He addressed all of them in the speech, the loudest applause coming when he talked about still his dedication to shutting down Guantanamo Bay, Ashleigh.
Perhaps that isn't such an absurd question when using the logic of Chris Matthews in which almost all forms of opposition to Barack Obama can be attributed to racism. And since the setting sun almost ruined Obama's speech in Berlin by making it impossible to read his teleprompter, thus making it difficult for him to finish his speech, could old Sol be a closet racist?
Here is the video of a freelancing Matthews whining against the sun for ruining what could have been Obama's shining moment:
ZitatThere were such high hopes, a crowd of 200,000 that turned out to see him then. This time a crowd of less than 10,000 people, probably closer to 6,000, and that's because President Obama is – well, first of all, the hopes, you couldn't have met – his reality couldn't have met those extraordinarily exuberant expectations. But also, he's continued so many of the policies of George W. Bush, from Gitmo to drones and now NSA surveillance. He addressed all of them in the speech, the loudest applause coming when he talked about still his dedication to shutting down Guantanamo Bay, Ashleigh.
No wonder they have no ratings. This analysis is like listening to a couple girls in school going on about Justin Beiber. It's Bush's fault the crowds didn't show up. Couldn't be because Zero is a lying sack of shit, could it. Hilarious.
Rex Reed raves: " Frank Cannon is fascinating, informative, engaging and heartbreaking stuff." — New York Observer