In case you were wondering whether politics are at play this week: “An Obama ad team will be on hand for the Berlin rally, which figures to become part of the campaign the same way President Ronald Reagan’s emotional D-Day anniversary speech in France did, as a TV commercial,” Paul West reports for the Baltimore Sun.
Maybe, says the campaign, but: “When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally, said “a senior foreign policy adviser,” who spoke to reporters on background about Obama’s planned speech, per Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown.
“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter reminded the adviser.
Meanwhile, CNN senior political analyst David Gergen said the following about Obama’s meeting with Iraq’s prime minister:
We have a long tradition in this country that we only have one president at a time. He’s [the sitting president] the commander in chief and the negotiator in chief. I cannot remember a campaign which a rival seeking the presidency has been in a position negotiating a war that’s under way with another party outside the country.
Ouch.
