Obama skipping Berlin Wall ceremony

President Obama announced this afternoon that he is dispatching Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to represent the US at the 20th anniversary Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall -- the symbolic end of Soviet dominance over Eastern Europe and the Cold War.

But his absence is not sitting well with some conservatives.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote today that while some consider Obama's decision "an outrage, I consider it a tragedy.
 
"To commemorate, after all, is to remember," the Georgia Republican said in an op-ed published in the Washington Examiner. "And Americans need to remember, not just that the Wall fell, but why it fell. We need to remember that the Berlin Wall was the symbol of more than just the Cold War, more than just the division of Europe. It was the symbol of an evil ideology that denied human dignity, denied truth, and respected only power. When the Wall fell, truth and human dignity, in a rare moment in the 20th century, triumphed over power.

"The message of human dignity that led to the toppling of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago is a true message of hope rooted in the spiritual nature of man and the freedom to know God," Gingrich concluded. "And so it is a true shame that the President of the United States - this man who cloaks himself in the rhetoric of hope - won't be pausing to remember."

Obama's schedule next week, however, is getting complicated. He is supposed to leave Wednesday on a 10-day tour of Asia, but he has also committed to attend the memorial service for the victims of the massacre at Fort Hood in Texas, which could also be next week.

The others in the official US delegation are Philip D. Murphy, the US ambassador to Germany; Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush; and Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter.