'This is our time.'

Not since the aftermath of 9/11 has it been wise for a U.S. politician to use possessive pronouns when addressing Europeans. Barack Obama isn't an ordinary politician, however, and the enormous crowd of over 200,000 Berliners that wildly cheered him yesterday demonstrated that international goodwill towards the U.S. hasn't been entirely snuffed by the war criminals of the disgraceful Bush epoch.

I'd like to think this amazing spectacle is one all U.S. citizens could savor. But the U.S. has been hacked in two by School of Karl Rove sociopaths who paint every occasion in black-&-white, my-side-versus-yours terms. Plus, a significant chunk of U.S. citizens don't give a fiddler's fart about the rest of the planet. Partisan hacks are undoubtedly waxing their moustaches in orgasmic anticipation of using Obama's European reception as proof of his elitism, his scary 'otherness', his being a left-wing 'rock star'. Naturally, a rubber-spined, shareholder-driven media will acquiesce.

And a wonderful moment for U.S. citizens of every stripe will get pureed by politics into just another bowl of bitter mush.