Oh my: they're still picking up the trash after the big Obama speech in Berlin, and already the powerhouse German publication, Der Spiegel, has weighed in with a prediction for the 2008 election: ''No. 44 has spoken.''
Or, as they so succinctly put it: ''No. 44 hat gesprochen.''
If you're John McCain, the reaction in any language is: ''Ach!''
Some excerpts from the glowing analysis by Gerhard Sporl, the chief editor of Der Spiegel's foreign desk:
''Anyone who saw Barack Obama at Berlin's Siegessaule on Thursday could recognize that this man will become the 44th president of the United States. He is more than ambitious -- he wants to lay claim to become the president of the world.
''It was a ton to absorb --- and what a stupendous ride through world history: the story of his own family, the Berlin Airlift, terrorists, poorly secured nuclear material, the polar caps, World War II, America's errors, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, freedom. It's amazing one could even pack such a potpourri of issues into sentences and then succeed in squeezing them all into the space of a speech that lasted less than 30 minutes.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=28499