Listening From Germany, Wondering About Change

Marcus Walker reports from Berlin on the inauguration. In Germany, the inauguration is being shown live on both the main state TV channels, ARD and ZDF. Even many Germans who are still at work are trying to follow the event. Jesco Delorme , a 33-year-old Berliner, is listening to the inauguration on the radio as he guards the artists’ entrance at Berlin’s state opera house on the famous Unter den Linden Boulevard. Later this evening, he’ll admit musicians and singers arriving for a performance of the opera “Phaedra.” Delorme, who works at the opera to fund his studies for a PhD in philosophy, likes Obama but doesn’t share the euphoria of many Obama fans on both sides of the Atlantic. “Of course it’s refreshing and a relief that he was elected. But many areas of policy will stay the same as before, as always in politics,” he says. “Obama seems sensible, eloquent, competent and pragmatic, but I don’t see him as a hero,” says Delorme. “I’m ... (link)