To Hell with the Prime Directive, Mr. Spock!

In his efforts to provide the American candidate an effective setting for his campaign stop in Germany, Foreign Minister Steinmeier found a crucial ally in the mayor of Berlin. Far from sharing the Chancellor's reservations, Wowereittold the daily Die Berliner Zeitunghttp://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/spezial/dossiers/uswahl/105486/index.php that he would welcome Obama -- in his words -- "us[ing] Berlin as a platform to give an important speech." And as the authorization to use municipal property to this end would have to come from the Berlin city government, or Senat, that Wowereit heads, the mayor's receptivity to the proposition was of obvious relevance. The city government would also -- "of course" -- provide security for the event, Wowereit added.

As if to send all of those horrible Americans to a sort of re-education camp, it seems that the German FM and Berlin Mayor, both members of opposition parties in Merkel’s grand coalition, are trying to change the course of a foreign election, notes John Rosenthal in the World Politics Review. As they many not realize, the transparent nature of the exercise seems to have then needed the kind of cover, a form of weaseling, that at least Germans will buy:

To deflect the charge that the city of Berlin and Germany as such were thus facilitating the campaign of the Democratic candidate, Obama's German sponsors hit upon the idea of declaring that Obama would be speaking not as an American presidential candidate, but merely as a senator or even just a "private citizen" -- as if there were two Obamas and the presidential candidate had not made the trip.

And possibly providing a donation in kind which might not be lawful as well, not to mention the malleability, arrogance, and cavalier nature of a campaign willing to accept it.

Sure, it might not be as juicy as watching another fake populist turn his career into a flaming twisted roadside wreck at the hands of a whacky, happy-go-lucky new-age blackmailer, baby-mama, and all-around over the hill politico trying to trade on the last chance she might have in life to get pregnant, but it’s just as hilarious to watch the press suppress or put a happy face on the venal nature of these supposed defenders of the politically useful downtrodden.

We’ll hear from all of these folks some day on ‘songs for aging children’, but until then, I cant imagine there being enough healing intervention to compensate for that little common sense and morally absent decision making. Funny, isn’t it, that most of us are happy with actually having a job to pay off those pyramid-power, ritual high colonics, and crystal-healing-by-your-person-angel classes?