Running for president of the world?(Inside Track)

On July 24, presidential candidate Barack Obama arrived in Berlin in a stop sandwiched between visits to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories beforehand, and subsequent stops in Paris and London before heading back to the United States. In Berlin Obama made a public address, and Bild, Germany's leading mass-circulation newspaper, compared the event to President John E Kennedy's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in 1963.

An examination of the transcript of Obama's speech indicates that, despite his oft-proclaimed mantra of "change," he seems to advocate many of the same internationalist positions as the neo-conservative Republicans who have dominated U.S. foreign policy during the Bush administration. He proclaimed, "Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for president, but as a citizen--a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world."

After reminding the Germans of the extraordinary effort made by Americans in operating the famous airlift to Berlin after the Soviets cut off land access to the city in 1948, Obama said that Berlin was "where a victory over tyranny gave rise to NATO, the greatest alliance ever formed to defend our common security." Taking a position that Republicans George W. Bush and John McCain would not disagree ...