It is always interesting to see how these two respond to the same event. In the case of the fall of the Berlin Wall, both Obama and McCain delivered remarks — Obama, via video, to the assembled masses in Berlin, and McCain to the students at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (what a difference a few million votes make). Obama never mentions the words Russia or Soviet Union. As Ed Morrissey writes, to hear Obama tell it you’d think “there was some vague tyrant that used to oppress eastern Europe but has since receded into the mists of history.” Neither did Obama mention any other president besides, of course, the references to himself. Obama gave a “shout out” to Joe Medicine Crown (indeed an impressive WWII vet) before his remarks on the Ft. Hood massacre the other day, but he didn’t give any shout outs in his Berlin remarks to the great men (and women) who made that wall come down. As Scott Johnson writes,
You can watch the video of Obama’s speech here. Then read McCain’s speech, the full text of which you can find after the jump. McCain gave shout outs to people like Konrad Adenauer, Helmut Kohl, and Margaret Thatcher. He praised Democrats like Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Scoop Jackson. And he remembered Ronald Reagan, “whose message of solidarity with the oppressed carried into the coldest gulags of the Soviet Empire, and who stood before the bleakest symbol of the Cold War and told Mr. Gorbachev to tear the awful thing down.” McCain went on,
