Obama mobbed in Berlin, but not by U.S. diplomats

A huge throng -- some 200,000 people according to the Berlin Police -- turned out to see Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama today when he addressed Berliners in the city's central Tiergarten.

But U.S. diplomats working at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin were not among them.

On orders from the State Department, the rally was declared off-limits to Foreign Service personnel because it is a "partisan political activity." Under the Hatch Act, civil servants in the United States are allowed to attend such rallies as long as they do not make political contributions to work for candidates.

But State Department Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy told the Washington Post's Karen DeYoung that the administration wanted to draw a line in the sand when it came to partisan stuff abroad. "We always maintain that no U.S. government Foreign Service person overseas should be seen to be advocating one side or the other," he said.

The diplomats' union, the American Foreign Service Assn., is appealing the ruling as "an unnecessarily narrow interpretation" of the rules.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Gero Breloer/EPA

Comments

[Pete Dawg]

Wow, you guys might have actually stumbled into a story. The Bush Administration barring Foreign Service workers from attending Obama's speech. Except if you keep reading the article the answer is there in black and white:

Kennedy cited section 4123.3 of the third volume of the lengthy manual of personnel regulations for the Foreign Service, which says: "A U.S. citizen employee, spouse, or family member shall not engage in partisan political activities abroad."

In the interview, Kennedy described the regulation as "a standing policy," although he acknowledged that "I don't believe we've ever had to interpret this before. None of us thinking about this could come up with a precedent" for the Obama campaign rally.

If this wasn't a politcally funded speech or trip why did Obama do this:

Obama scraps visit to wounded troops
Jul 24 04:09 PM US/Eastern
BERLIN (AP) - Sen. Barack Obama scrapped plans to visit wounded members of the armed forces in Germany as part of his overseas trip, a decision his spokesman said was made because the Democratic presidential candidate thought it would be inappropriate on a campaign-funded journey.

Obama had been planning to go to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany before a flight to Paris. Gibbs said the stop was canceled because Obama decided "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."

Oh, well. Guess it wasn't a story after all.