Not everyone at Bild is besotten with Barrack Obama.

Joachim Nikolaus Steinhöfel a commentator for Bild’s Sunday edition, offers a bracing corrective in a video you can find here ^[1]. For those of you who thought the German press was hopelessly left, this is a little schnaps in your coffee. Many Germans watched this video–and a good many might well agree with Steinhöfe.

At my request, Steinhöfel provided this translation of the German script:

Barack Obama is outstanding – when reading bromides from a TelePrompTer. The Messiah is a three-year senator. Legislative achievements ? Nothing ! Obama’s favorite topic is Obama anyway. Thus he already managed to write to books regarding this subject. What does Obama stand for ? That is questionable and maybe he does not even know that himself. His voting record in the Senate is far left: massive tax increases, paternalistic state, redistribution. Regarding a lot of other issues, from the war in Iraq to capital punishment and the Second Amendment, his positions change whichever way the wind blows. He was calculating, even when he denounced his white grandmother as being racist. And what for ? To back his black hate priest, who married him and his wife and baptized his children. He is humorless and self-righteous. Thin-skinned, when criticized. But Obama praises Obama’s judgement. Being wrong every time, when his patronizing lectures collide with reality. His victory in the primaries he called “a historical moment, when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” An American columnist comes to mind, that “even Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick.” Obama sees himself in another league.

In an email, Steinhöfel explains that he mentioned the race of Obama’s grandmother and that of Rev. Wright–he suspects that most Germans may not know or remember even these basic facts about Obama. Their love is broad, but not deep. Economists would say this is a case of “rational ignorance”; Germans cannot vote in the November election, so they have little reason to study him closely.

Unfortunately for Obama, American voters do have that incentive. Intense crushes do not last. Even if this summer’s infatuation is replaced with a cooler, adult-kind of love come autumn, will that be enough for Obama to win the presidency?

Even in the heat of summer passion, he is essentially tied with John McCain in polls.