An American View of a European View of the American Election

In an article I found online tonight, Jonathan Freedland writes in the Guardian that Europe, and in his view the world, will be deeply disappointed in America and Americans if we don't elect Barack Obama in November. (here's a link to the article: The World's Verdict Will be Harsh if the US Rejects the Man it Yearns For).

I first ran into the "European View" of American politics when I lived in Ireland in 1985-6, during the Reagan Years. I knew several Irishmen who felt that the American elections were too important to be left to the American electorate. Their point, which has some merit, is that they in Europe, and indeed most of the world, are very much impacted by who occupies the White House. They didn't like Ronald Reagan as President. They felt he rattled the sabre too much. And it's certainly no secret that Europeans, and much of the world, don't like the incumbent.

The reader of this blog knows that I don't like the incumbent and that I favor Senator Obama over Senator McCain. At the same time, I lack an appreciation of the "European View," or the World View, if you want to expand the European View the way Mr Freedland does.

In my view, Europeans want to control the US while using the US to do their dirty work, and in my view Americans won't have that. Europeans love to look down on America and Americans while happily taking our money and our military protection. I think it's time Europe, which prides itself on being a world player, step up and be a world power. Right now, the US is the only military power in NATO. Great Britain and France can do a little bit on their own, but not much. The rest of NATO cannot leave its borders without US military assistance.

Europeans love to tell us how to use our military power, but they refuse to have any of their own. They love to tell us where we need to send peacekeepers (see Kosovo), but they cannot send any peacekeepers anywhere on their own without our logistical support. Their presence in Afghanistan is because we foot most of the bill. We fly them in and out, and we supply them.

My view, and I think the view of most Americans, is that Europeans need to pay what we pay for the military that protects them (from Russie, for example) before they can have any say in what we do or who we elect. And they need to get off their high horse about who we elect.

Another Media Frenzy

Some headlines from around the country about "the Palin pregnancy."

"In Political Realm, 'Family Problem' Emerges as Test" New York Times

"McCain fought money on teen pregnancy programs" Associated Press

"Palin: Just how well was she vetted?" MSNBC

"Gov. Palin and her daughter, Bristol" Albany Times Union, NY

"Republicans rally around their VP candidate" Staten Island Advance, NY

"Everybody has an opinion on Bristol pregnancy" San Francisco Chronicle

"We're Sorry, but Palin Baby Daddy Levi Johnston is Sex on Skates" New York Magazine

Okay, after that last one, I think I've seen enough. Those headlines don't come from viscious bloggers with no sense of responsibility. No, they come from some of the most respected news organizations around the country.

We don't have anything more important to cover in this campaign than the out of wedlock pregnancy of a seventeen year old girl? We have to slander someone who may or may not be the father to sell magazines? Somehow I thought there was a difference between New York Magazine and the Star tabliod sold at my supermarket.

I guess not, eh?

I'm no fan of Sarah Palin. There are a lot of things she stands for that I am in strong disagreement with. But do we need to drag her daughter through the mud because John McCain showed the bad judgment to select her as his running mate? And do we need to gratuitously drag the name of the putative father through the mud too? I think we can, and should, do better than making this campaign about the sex lives of teenagers.

The only issue that the Sarah Palin candidacy should bring up is the one about how a President McCain makes decisions. Personally, I see an impetuousness that is unsettling. Is that how a McCain presidency would be: dithering till the last moment then choosing the spectacular but ill-conceived option?

McCain wanted Lieberman or Ridge. But the Conservative christians of the Republican Religious Right would have neither and threatened to turn the normally staid Republican Convention into something that resembled the 1968 Democratic Convention. So McCain caved and gave them their ideological sister.

Would a President McCain cave to Vladimir Putin in so craven a manner? I'd like to think not. But even scarier, would McCain issue Putin some ultimatim, like withdraw or we'll bomb you, and start a major war with the Russians? I'm not so sure gambler McCain, impetuous McCain would not.

And, to me, that's the only issue about the Palin selection: what it says about McCain's judgment and his decision-making process.

Oh, and since the vice-presidency really doesn't have much in the way of formal duties--and the McCain selection of Palin fits with his own view of a weak and ineffective vice-presidency--I think the lady will have plenty of time to tend to any family business that needs her attention.

(My real hope is that after a couple of heady months of campaigning, she can tend to her family from the comfort of her Alaskan Governor's Mansion, or whatever they have up there.)