US and Them

So how does the rest of the world see us? The UK Telegraph conducted a poll last June of Europeans and overwhelmingly, Obama was the winner over McCain."He is especially popular in Italy, where a remarkable 70 per cent would vote for him if they could. In France, historically the European country with the strongest anti-American sentiment, 65 per cent would back Mr Obama. In Germany, the Democratic Senator would get 67 per cent of the vote - while Mr McCain would receive a derisory six per cent. Mr Obama appears to have made less of an impact in Britain than elsewhere in Europe. A relatively modest 49 per cent of Britons would vote for him, while 14 per cent would back Mr McCain - twice the totals favouring the Republican candidate in Germany or France."

Before Obama's whirlwind tour of Europe last summer, Bill Schneider of CNN reported on his already growing popularity in countries OTHER than the US. "To his European fans, Obama is the symbol of American renewal. They know three things about him. That he is young. That he is African-American. And that he has a Muslim name. Europeans live in countries with large, unassimilated Muslim minorities. The idea that someone with Obama's name and background could become President of the United States astonishes and impresses them. Europeans are thrilled by the idea that the United States can suddenly transform itself from a pariah in the world into an inspiration to the world. As a woman put it to me in Paris: 'We want America back.''' So do we. So do we.

Imagine how a President McCain--or worse, a President Palin--would play around the world. Thanks to Katie for this perspective from the UK Guardian on Sarah Palin's debate showing: "And so she proceeded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity. It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.

From a certain point of view, Die Zeit in Germany argues, an Obama administration has in essence already begun. "No, not the tenure of President Obama. Because Obama the candidate may still lose. But the governing philosophy of Barack Obama, which has already conquered America. With the advent of the still-embattled rescue package for Wall Street's banking giants, comes the inevitable end of an era which began with Ronald Reagan: free markets, low taxes, deregulation."

Even if he loses the presidential election to McCain (How likely is that? According to fivethirtyeight.com, there's a 5% chance...), he's already won, said an editorial in the English-language Khaleej Times, a daily based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. "If McCain is America's past," it said, "Obama is its future."

Speaking of the past, in case you had any doubt about "torture" and "official US Policy," The Washington Post reports today that "the Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects -- documents prompted by worries among intelligence officials about a possible backlash if details of the program became public...The memos were the first -- and, for years, the only -- tangible expressions of the administration's consent for the CIA's use of harsh measures to extract information from captured al-Qaeda leaders, the sources said. As early as the spring of 2002, several White House officials, including then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney, were given individual briefings by Tenet and his deputies, the officials said. Rice, in a statement to congressional investigators last month, confirmed the briefings and acknowledged that the CIA director had pressed the White House for 'policy approval.'"

Don't forget that in February, 2008, McCain voted AGAINST the Senate bill that would have forced "the C.I.A. to abide by the rules set out in the Army Field Manual on Interrogation, which prohibits physical force and lists approved interrogation methods." Feel free to allow the outrage to direct your voting patterns.

In other news, The AP reports that VP and Palin-model Dick Cheney was hospitalized today for a heart arrthymia--I know what you're thinking-- Cheney has a heart??