With only ten more days until the grand election, it’s time for our equally grand finale of the Obama Check. Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Christian Democrats (CDU) will have the honor of being the final checkee. As a fellow head of government, Merkel deals with Barack Obama on a regular basis. Did those interactions leave a mark on the German Chancellor? Find out after the break and see the final score of our series.
Welcome to the penultimate edition of the Obama Check! It’s only one more installment until the grand finale. Today we’ll be testing Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Chancellor candidate of the SPD. Steinmeier has a clear advantage over our previous checkees – he has actually met and touched his Obamaness, and there are pictures to prove it. So did Steinmeier catch some of that Obama glamour? Let’s find out.
Good Day and welcome to the third installment of our five-part series the Obama Check. Today it’s Renate Künast’s of the Green Party turn. She, as the previous checkees Guido Westerwelle and Oskar Lafontaine, will be tested in five categories, the rating criterias of which you can read here.
USA Erklaert blogger Scot W. Stevenson has been a guest on tapmag before. We were happy to have him also visit our seminar last week, where he gave a compact and informative guest lecture on transatlantic journalism.
Here is the video (in German). Scot mainly talks about the differences between American and German interpretations of free speech, the rights and duties of the press, and how the Internet undermines German privacy rights via American websites. Good stuff.
In the Superwahljahr 2009 and with only four months to go till the election to the Bundestag, tapmag brings you a special new series, the Obama Check.
German politicians craving for voter attention hope to get at least some of that Obama-glamour for themselves. We will test how obama (new adjective!) the candidates of the five major parties really are.
Several sources report that U.S. President Barack Obama will anounce Phillip D. Murphy, a former investment banker with Goldman Sachs, as the new U.S. Ambassador to Germany.
Murphy, 52, has been in charge of the Democratic Party’s finances, after he left Goldman Sachs in 2006. As an investment banker, Murphy has headed the German branch of Goldman Sachs in the 90s, and was involved in several deals with the Treuhand-Anstalt. He will replace William R. Timken, who has left Berlin in January.
Atlantic Review points out that the new man in the American embassy is a board member of the U.S. Soccer Foundation, which sounds like he might enjoy a smooth start in Berlin.
As the global economic crisis questions many long-hold beliefs about American and European economic policy, the U.S. press has discovered that some answers might be found across the Atlantic. Germany offers a fine case study for the advantages as well as drawbacks of increased government interference to bring the economy back on track.
Is the German response to the economic crisis slower because of German culture, New York Times correspondent in Berlin Nicholas Kuhlisch asked last week. His idea is that the German love for rules and Ordnung, embodied in the strict adherence to each and every sign in a German swimming pool („Nicht vom Beckenrand springen!“, „Nicht auf den Kacheln rennen!“, „Keine Schuhe im Barfussbereich!“), can also explain the transatlantic furor over economic stimulus packages.
German swimming pool: Too many rules?
Maybe I’m just spoiled by Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Saturday Night Live or even South Park. Maybe it’s just too much to ask that we’ll ever get anything like this piece of brilliance. But after seeing the latest attempt at political “satire” (yes, those are scare quotes!) on German TV, I can’t help but feel incredibly frustrated.
The CDU has a new website up for its 2009 campaign called teAM Deutschland. AM stands for Angela Merkel, which is about as clever as playing “Angie” by The Rolling Stones at every campaign rally.
But, the creative minds of the CDU didn’t not stop there. tapmag can’t help but recognize the new logo from some other quite successful campaign…
The German election 2009 might look just like the US election 2008—literally.
Next,
Connect with us on different platforms.
Subscribe via RSSStay updated on all things transatlantic via your RSS-reader.
Subscribe via EmailHave all the news delivered right into your mailbox.
