Climate-change activists are parading in front of the Brandenburg Gate today as German Chancellor Angela Merkel flies off to D.C. for talks with President Barack Obama.

But the climate between Merkel and Obama has already changed. "Obama, Merkel to meet under cloud of disagreement," reads a typical headline in the U.S. press.

More to the point, the German press's love affair with Obama has definitely cooled. Der Spiegel has no qualms about pinning the donkey's tail on Obama, doling out harsh criticism of U.S. economic policies in "German Chancellor Visits the Debt President."

"The president may have changed, but the excesses of American politics have remained, the German mag's Gabor Steingart writes. "Barack Obama and George W. Bush, it has become clear, are more similar than they might seem at first glance."

Yikes.

Obama even has his own Dick Cheney, Steingart contends:

Obama and Merkel disagree not only about how to quell the global economic crisis but also on Germany's role in fighting the Afghan War. Merkel may be grandstanding a little when it comes to her criticism of the U.S.'s trying to spend its way out of the recession; she faces an election this fall and wants to look tough, as the AP and other U.S. outlets note. But she and many other European leaders no doubt are miffed by such episodes as one that Steingart's story points out:

Steingart isn't laughing. He goes on to list what he calls the "Obama administration's five errors." All of them revolve around our spending money we don't have.