How impressive was President G. H.W. Bush at Embassy dedication in Berlin (4 Juli 2008)?

Did the public turn out for the new Embassy ceremony where he and Chancellor Merkel spoke? Former president George H.W. Bush inaugurated the new US Embassy in Germany at its pre-World War II site yesterday, a return that he said symbolized the fulfillment of "a great and noble dream" of European freedom and unity.

Bush, who was president when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and supported German reunification less than a year later, spoke alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel at the site in front of the Brandenburg Gate - the symbol of Germany's postwar division and then of its unification.

The embassy completes the post-reunification rebuilding of the Pariser Platz, the square in front of the gate, which once stood in the fortified no man's land behind the Berlin Wall.

"Today, we fit one of the last pieces of a historic puzzle into place," Bush said. "The reality that it lays bare - a new American Embassy in the capital of a unified Germany, fitting in the heart of a Europe that is indeed whole and free and at peace, is in fact a great and noble dream realized."

"To my fellow Americans, I simply say: welcome home," Bush added in a speech after he and Ambassador William Timken used golden scissors to cut a red, white, and blue ribbon outside the embassy.