"While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a 'citizen of the world,' John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said.
McCain's campaign also hammered Obama for canceling his planned visit this morning to U.S. military personnel at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Obama "decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign," spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
"Barack Obama is wrong," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers responded. "It is never 'inappropriate' to visit our men and women in the military." McCain's team also mocked Obama for urging Europeans to commit more troops to the war in Afghanistan, assailing his failure to call hearings on the conflict.
Beyond terrorism, Obama also pledged unity with Europe in fighting climate change.
"Let us resolve that we will not leave our children to a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads, and terrible storms devastate our lands," he said. "Let us resolve that all nations, including my own, will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere."
Invoking the Berlin Airlift of 1948 and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Obama suggested that victory over communism shows that humanity can overcome its toughest challenges.
"People of the world, look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one," he said.
Obama also echoed President Ronald Reagan's 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate, when he implored Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
"The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand," Obama said. "The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christians and Muslims and Jews cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down."
Michael Finnegan writes for the Los Angeles Times.
