Obama in Prague

Sorry, President Obama, but I skipped the lovefest. Judging from what I heard from people, and from Charlemagne's blog post about the speech and the crowd, it seems as if both Obama and his audience had different ideas of what the event was all about. Obama spoke about the Czech's long struggle for freedom to an audience that, until they arrived here, probably couldn't find the country on a map. The mass of (mostly young) Americans wanted a campaign speech, some post-election pick-me-up, or an Ich bin ein Berliner moment. But they didn't get that. With the lack of Czechs in the audience, the generally tepid response across Europe and the mild tensions at the G20 summit, perhaps we are finding out that many Europeans preferred to hate Bush rather than love Obama.