Unfortunately, the Web site does not carry the print edition’s cover story and it is impossible to find the magazine up here on the rocky coast of Maine. So I’ll have to read what my blogger colleagues in Germany have to say about the issue.
The title – Der Messias-Factor (The Messiah-Factor) – makes me very skeptical. Americans’ enthusiasm for Senator Obama is not because of some irrational faith in a Messiah. Rather, Barack Obama is the best political talent to come along in a generation.
If the article was written by Gabor Steingart, then I fear it is nothing more than a hatchet job. But I look forward to reading the issue, when/if I can get my hands on it.
UPDATE: Reader AB was kind enough to send me the article. It is actually pretty good – NOT written by Steingart, but rather by Klaus Brinkbäumer and Marc Hujer. It does repeat some of the demographic misinformation that the US media propagate – that Obama only appeals to affluent white males and African Americans. The results yesterday in "white" states Nebraska and Washington – where he won in every county – show that he has broad support across all gender, racial, age, and income groups. The article does get to the heart of Senator Obama’s enormous appeal to many Americans: he personifies the promise of a better America:
Beweist Barack Obama, der schwarze
Demokrat, der hier zu Hause ist, hier in
Chicago, hier in dieser Kirche, nicht gerade
das Gegenteil? Sieht in diesen Wochen
nicht die ganze Welt dabei zu, wie ein anderes
Amerika entsteht? Ein friedliches,
gütiges, mitfühlendes? Die Völker in Europa,
in Asien warten auf so ein Amerika,
eines, das nicht immer sofort zu militärischen
Interventionen greift, das wieder
zuhören kann und seine Gäste willkommen
heißt, ein Amerika, das die Vereinten
Nationen ernst nehmen und vielleicht sogar
stützen wird, das Multilateralismus
schon aus Eigeninteresse anstrebt.
Und wird das nicht ein Amerika sein, in
dem endlich wirklich ein jeder werden
kann, was er werden will? In dem alle
krankenversichert sind, Migranten willkommen,
Lehrer gut bezahlt, in dem Rüstungsetats
für Forschungsfinanzierung umgewidmet
werden und die Schlaglöcher der
South Side wieder zu Straßen?
So I recommend this article. As reader Archilocos points out in the comments below, the issue also contains an extended interview with John McCain. I’ll post my thoughts on this later…
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The Spiegel is THE publication with the crassest drop in quality in the last years. It’s not all the critical paper it used to be, the inquisitive journalism has been all but lost. They regularly publish racist hit-jobs against muslims, there are very nice refutations around for some of the most scandalous “new Spiegel” pieces.
Also the continuing fight of the former owners family against the corporate takeover of what once was Germanys finest paper is a saga worth investigating.
The employment of goons like Steingart is only one of many factors that contributed to the Spiegels demise, as the former owners daughter said, “der Fisch stinkt vom Kopf her”.
I don´t know why Antonym would post such crap. First of all the guy he hates, Steingart, is basically neutralized since they sent him off to Washington. Secondly there is and never has been a corporate take over of Der Spiegel – it is still mainly owned by its employees.
I read the Obama title and it´s not Steingartian at all, it´s a very positive take, largely biographic. And they have a 4 page interview with John McCain – which really is a coup. I mean which German newspaper or magazine would get a US presidential candidate for an interview while he is campaigning?
I really wonder sometimes about the irrational hatred Der Spiegel provokes with some people. The right-wingers hate it because it´s supposedly leftist. The leftists hate it because they say it´s not leftist anymore (thus ignoring that Der Spiegel has never been really leftist); so basically it´s ideological critique which is mostly boring.
Der Spiegel is still Germany´s best and most influential magazine and with about 250 editors and reporters it has a manpower to match.
Btw. I´m glad Gabor Steingart is neutralized, too – what he wrote about Obama was just bullshit.
Well, the quality of Der Spiegel has improved since the departure of (neo-liberal bully) Stefan Aust.
I complained about loss of investigative journalism and cheap ethics in the former “Sturmgeschütz der Demokratie” that once upon a time had real and exciting battles with the officials and would have never resorted to racist slander…
…and someone sees a political rant about right/left. What can you do with such people. In a way, this generation really has it hard even though all they’re asked to provide is spinelessness.. They don’t even know anymore what the press was once able to accomplish if it only tried.
Obama did not won the Iowa caucus fairly.
My Edward supporter friends gave a sad testimony, how the caucus was stolen by out the of stay temporary visitors. Seems to be taught by Kerry against Dean.
Obama is dirty everywhere except for a few moments when he takes a shower and keeps his mob far away from the stage.
I think he is so indecent that even he can not lie about it. Just ask him. On Wright he admitted all my worst nightmares.