A fundraising e-mail sent out after Barack Obama’s Berlin speech raises questions about the true purpose of his trip.

From ABC News’ Jake Tapper.

Shortly after 6 pm Central time — just a few hours after Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, gave his speech in Berlin, which his campaign insisted was not political — his campaign manager, David Plouffe, sent out a fundraising solicitation using the speech to raise campaign cash.

“As you may have heard, Barack has been in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia this week,” reads the email, with a big red “DONATE” sign. “Today, he spoke in Berlin, Germany. In a city where a wall once divided the free from the oppressed, he talked about tearing down the walls that divide all peoples so we can address our common problems — the threats of terrorism and nuclear weapons, global warming and genocide, AIDS and poverty. Watch Barack’s historic speech and share it with your friends.”

The letter offers a link to the video and asks recipients to please “forward this email to your friends, family, and colleagues.”

This is certainly going to be used as ammunition for those critics who wondered about the true purpose of this “non political” trip.

- jpt

UPDATE: The Obama campaign takes issue with my description of its email with its big, red “DONATE” button as a “fundraising soliciation.” The campaign, which has raised more money through the internet than any other campaign in world history, says the purpose of this email, the “DONATE” button notwithstanding, was for folks to see the speech and share it with their friends.

(When you click on that DONATE button, I might add, you’re taken to this webage which reads: “Make your donation online…Make your donation using the secure form below…$25  $100  $500  $2,300 
$50  $250  $1,000  Other: $ …Credit Card: Visa MasterCard American Express Discover…Donating Offline: If you would prefer to contribute by mail, send a check to: Obama for America, P.O. Box 802798, Chicago, IL 60680…Donating Monthly: Click here to make a recurring donation….Americans Abroad: Click here to make a donation.)

The campaign calls the above blog entry “misleading.” You be the judge.

If this was a non-political trip then why did he stiff our troops in Germany?

Obama senior adviser Robert Gibbs told ABC News in a statement, “During his trip as part of the CODEL to Afghanistan and Iraq, Sen. Obama visited the combat support hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad and had a number of other visits with the troops.  For the second part of his trip, the senator wanted to visit the men and women at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center to express his gratitude for their service and sacrifice. The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that 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.”

Obama just can’t seem to make up his mind as to the nature of his much ballyhooed visit.

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