Reminders

On the same day our dictator apprentice was busy advancing Russian foreign policy by berating NATO allies in Brussels, President Obama was speaking before a cheering crowd in Berlin and meeting with a clearly pleased Angela Merkel.

Besides his nuanced discussion of international issues and democratic governance in a public forum in which audience members asked questions, President Obama provided the succinct message of the day: "We can't hide behind a wall."

The Washington Post noted that in a Pew poll last summer, some 86% of Germans and 77% of Europeans generally said they had confidence in President Obama.  The then-Republican presidential candidate got all of 9%.

CNN noted that President Obama's White House photographer Pete Souzza has been posting his photos on his Instagram account--"And the photos Souza shares seem to be anything but random."

 CNN reproduced several images that showed a clear difference with something in the news concerning the current regime.  I don't know if Souzza was there in Berlin in 2008 when candidate Obama drew a crowd of 200,000.  But that might have been a good photo for Thursday.