200,000 people... That's a lot...

You know, I was making lunch and nearly forgot about Obama's speech in Berlin today. Now, he didn't say anything that we haven't heard for months over here, but the images being captured are beyond comprehension. Estimates seem to vary, but some are saying as many as 215,000 people showed up for the event. The general consensus number is about 200,000.

When is the last time an American politician drew a crowd like that anywhere, even here. I kind of tuned out the speech a little bit, it wasn't really that riveting (hope, change, Berlin, you know, what one would expect). I couldn't turn away from the crowd though. I mean they had Germans, you know some of the United States' biggest critics over the last few years, WAVING American flags! I mean, that's really insane if you think about it.

The criticism following this is already annoying. People are getting really xenophobic about things. You know, if the Europeans love him, we should hate him... all that BS. Heh, it's probably attitudes like that that caused us to be lightning rods for international disdain in the first place. At least now, it looks like an Obama presidency would help heal some of those wounds. We'll see what happens...