Obama meets with Merkel in Germany

[depakid]

IN THE GREEN VAULT: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Obama meet in the Green Vault at Dresden Royal Palace.
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Reporting from Dresden, Germany and Los Angeles — A day after he called for new relations with the Muslim world, President Obama turned to the other side of the Middle East peace equation as he prepared this morning to visit Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

Obama kicked off the European leg of his current trip by meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Dresden, Germany today. He is also in Europe to commemorate the 65th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944, when the Allies invaded Europe in the drive to defeat Adolf Hitler.

Obama arrived here Thursday night from Cairo and his almost hour-long speech designed to open a new page in U.S. relations with the Muslim world.

After meeting with Merkel, with whom he discussed some of the world's political and economic issues, Obama was scheduled to go by helicopter to Buchenwald, a concentration camp where about 56,000 people, mainly Jews, were worked as slaves or killed outright during World War II. Obama is expected to again discuss the Holocaust, its impact on survivors and its role in the founding of the state of Israel.

Politically, the visit to Buchenwald helps turn the focus on Israel and the U.S. commitment to the Jewish state, founded in the wake of the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis. In his Cairo speech, Obama sharply criticized those who question whether the Holocaust took place including Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has urged that Israel be wiped out.

Threatening Israel with destruction or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews is deeply wrong and only serves to evoke in the minds of the Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve," Obama said on Thursday.

Obama is the first U.S. president to visit Buchenwald. It is near a smaller camp, Ohrdruf, which was liberated with the help of Obama's great-uncle, Charles Payne, 84, who was with the American military units that captured the camps in April 1945.

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-obama-germany5-2009jun05,0,6136450.story

[quantass]

1. Thank you

Very good read

[LibDemAlways]

2. I'll bet she was relieved not to be attacked with an

unsolicited shoulder rub when the POTUS entered the room.

[Orsino]

4. She was probably relieved enough to want to give Obama a massage.

The contrast between two American presidents can still be a little intoxicating.

[asphalt.jungle]

6. Well I'm sure she liked shrub more since they have a lot in common politically

The shoulder massage might have been uncomfortable for her since he's rather uptight, but that was just irrational exuberance on the shrub's part because he found a leader in Europe that agreed with him philosophically.

[LibDemAlways]

3. Dupe

[depakid]

5. Note the time on the post...