Barack Obama’s speech Thursday in Germany may have grabbed the attention of the crowd of 200,000 with its outline of his world view, but his introduction was enough to catch attention back home.
“I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before, although 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,” Obama said from his perch next to the Victory Column in Berlin, from which he could see throngs of spectators.
To several observers at home, that opening was the speech’s most noteworthy flourish.
“The opening line where he said he wasn’t speaking as a candidate but as a citizen of the world … it might have seemed appropriate for that audience, but you can’t remove the candidacy factor from it,” said Linda Hobgood, director of the Speech Center in the Department of Rhetoric and Communication Studies at the University of Richmond. “So it might have been more accurate to say, ‘While I am a candidate, I am also a citizen of the world.’”
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/24/obama-casts-self-as-world-citizen/