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• Position: German head of state Angela Merkel and American president Barack Obama

On June 9, 2011, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made her third visit to Washington, D.C., during Barack Obama's presidency--this time to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom award, making her the second German, after former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, to be so honored. However, just before Merkel's visit, her government cast an extremely controversial vote when it abstained on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorized military intervention in Libya. For the first time in modern history, Germany had voted against the West, including France, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.

Because of this questionable move, the press on both sides of the Atlantic debated the sincerity of the upcoming ceremony. The issue quickly became politicized when media outlets with different political leanings placed their own spin on the ceremony. Conservative blogger Russell Berman stated: "When German Chancellor Angela Merkel meets with President Obama this week in Washington, symbols will outweigh substance, even more than they usually do in international politics. The rationale for the visit is explicitly symbolic: the president will bestow the Medal of Freedom on the chancellor."

On the other side of the Atlantic, European news outlets viewed the U.S.'s gesture with suspicion as well. The weekly German newspaper Die Zeit claimed, "Sometimes praise is harder to bear than criticism. Those who give praise expect something in return."

Similarly, the financial German daily Handelsblatt argued that "the excessive American hospitality this week comes with a crystal-clear agenda. The U.S. wants Germany to take responsibility on a number of points--as financier of reconstruction in the Arab world, as an anchor of stability in the euro turbulence, and as a political heavy lifter in the Middle East."

The crisis in Libya was only one of the pressing issues on which Merkel and Obama disagreed--another, which the two leaders would inevitably address, involved the deepening financial crisis that Greece faced. Obama had urged European countries and their creditors to come together and prevent disaster in Greece, promising U.S. support in heading off the country's debt woes. With U.S. unemployment still high at 9.1%, Obama blamed outside forces--including rising fuel prices, the recent earthquake in Japan, and the Eurozone crisis--for impeding the economy. Meanwhile, the EU was in the middle of finalizing the details for a Greek bailout package worth...