Leftier-than-me professor Jeff Weintraub swings the bat for the US on his own blog and on HuffPo, making the same point I did (more eloquently and with more research) about European racism and Obama:
But having followed the European media with some care since my arrival in Vienna on June 1, I have seen very little acknowledgement of one inconvenient complicating reality. Obama, or someone with Obama’s social background and political style, would have a hard time getting elected dog-catcher in any of these European countries, let alone President or Prime Minister (or, in Germany, Chancellor).
There are various reasons why that’s true. Despite the swooning praises of Obama from the western European chattering classes, the reality is that someone in their own countries with Obama’s political style would actually turn them off. A European candidate with Obama’s message of hope and idealism would make a lot of European journalists, intellectuals, and politicians roll their eyes. And in western European countries with established party systems, it would be almost impossible for a political outsider like Obama to vault over a party hierarchy so dramatically.
But the most fundamental reasons run deeper. A number of European countries have elected women to high political office, even the highest. (Score that one for the Europeans, at least some of them.) But as Jerry Karabel and I pointed out, none of them has ever elected a non-white person of any extraction to its highest political office–that is, head of state or head of government. (Actually, no predominantly-white country in the world has ever elected a black person to its highest political office.)
He makes another point in passing:
Along with the world-wide impact of this year’s US election drama in general, which shouldn’t be discounted, the Obama factor in particular probably helps explain developments like these:
A BBC global poll released in April showed that views of the U.S. had improved in 11 of 23 countries from a year ago, including a big gain in France. A recent poll for ARD-TV showed that German confidence in the U.S. soared by 21 percentage points to 53% from last year.
While I don’t doubt that the thought of another Clinton or Obama in office warms the hearts of the Europeans lots, I can’t help but wonder the extent to which the drumbeat of good news out of Iraq – oh, sorry, the silence of the media on Iraq – combined with the realization that the European countries have some work to do on the Islamist issue, and that it isn’t the fevered product of Doug Feith’s imagination – might not have something to do with it.
They are certainly no more pro-war in Iraq than they were before. But the war in Iraq shows signs of quieting to the level of the tolerable Bosnian crisis. And that might just be livable to the typical Parisian.
And, yes, they might get eight more years of Bill Clinton or eight years of Barak, the most European of candidates not remotely electable by, you know, actual Europeans.
I don’t see much evidence for your hunch that Europeans are impressed by progress in Iraq. To see what we are reading, why not take a look at what we read? Take Le Monde for example. I see two relevant articles and one editorial on the site at the moment, all with good news about America: briefly, (1) Dennis Kucinich is seeking to impeach Bush, (2) Bush is turning to Europe for help in his efforts to deal with Iran and (3) the age of Bush is drawing to a close, as both candidates distance themselves from the wretched man: John McCain et Barack Obama, ont pour point commun de vouloir tourner la page du “bushisme”. Which last is a claim that the Obama campaign will seek to refute, so far as McCain (alias Bush III) is concerned, but there you go.
As for Islamism, I don’t think it’s news to anyone over here that there are issues to be addressed. I haven’t met many people who think American foreign policy is helping much. Such people do exist of course; see Harry’s Place for example. But it’s a minority view.
Obviously, Obama’s political style and history are tailored for the American road to elective office—but let me ask: four years ago, how plausible did an Obama presidency seem? If the Europeans had a non-white in contention then, would someone be saying about the USA what you are now saying about Europe? (Shouldn’t someone also mention that no European country has a black population as large or as longstanding as ours?)
As for the good news from Iraq, it’s as ephemeral as all the other periods of “good news” that have been trumpeted here. There’s no oil-revenue sharing law. There’s tremendous resentment of the colonialist treaty in all but name for our bases. Etc.
Andrew #2:
According to the National Election Survey around 80-90% of respondents have indicated willingness to vote for a black as President since the 1990s. (Can’t recall whether the item specifies a “black man.”) So yes, it would have been quite plausible, had anyone known who he was outside of Illinois.
Regarding the question about Europe, according to the World Values Survey (similar to the Eurobarometer of earlier years) the US has been consistently less prejudiced about race than Belgium, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, and Britain. The most recent poll in 2000 showed the Netherlands and Germany as less prejudiced, while only Denmark and Canada were consistently less prejudiced for the 19 year period covered by the surveys.
As for prejudice against Muslims, no European country was less so than the US, although again Canada was least. At the ends of the distribution Belgium was the most prejudiced on both race and religion, and Canada was least. For instance, 22% of respondents indicated that they would specifically not like to have a Muslim as neighbor, while only about 7% of Canadians so indicated. The US was next to Canada, at around 11%. Britain was 14%, etc..
There haven’t been any World Values polls conducted since 2000, but other polls by Pew, etc., as recently as 2006, aren’t inconsistent with those results.
Andrew #3, again:
When the NYT and the Economist both suggest that things have turned around I think we can safely characterize it as more than “ephemeral.” The point is that the takfirists are losing… outright and across-the-board. This is a very good thing, and it just seems niggardly to characterize it as anything else.
Some folks have an ideological need to believe that the Iraq war is lost, just as others (e.g. in 2006) had as strong an ideological need for it to be succeeding. The truth, as far as I can determine it from the sources I have (the same ones everyone else has, newspapers and magazines, blogs, television news etc), is that it _was_ failing then and it _has_ turned around now. But just as hawks were not giving up in 06, doves are not going to give up now. And to be fair, it is entirely conceivable that it will turn around again before the election. To be equally fair, it will certainly turn around if Obama carries through on his promise of surrender.
_”no oil-revenue sharing law”_
My god. Scramble Airforce 1.
_”There’s tremendous resentment of the colonialist treaty in all but name for our bases”_
Which would be a tremendous problem… if we were intending to colonize Iraq. Fortunately since our goal is to stabalize the country that doesnt seem to be a big problem. If the elected Iraqi government asks us to leave because they feel they can handle their security, well that is our goal. That fine point is difficult to catch if you actually do believe we are there to colonize.
Hey, it wasn’t me who said there would be an oil revenue law. It was the Decider himself. The reduction in violence was supposed to be a means to an end, not the end itself.
How would you score the results? I got partial reform of the lustration laws and Iraqi reconstruction spending, and zero on the rest. And it’s the Maliki government which (with a little help from Iran) just discovered that the agreement they intended with the USA is incompatible with Iraqi sovereignty.
It might, however, be better not to threadjack.
On the other topic of the thread, this is an interesting question and there can be multiple answers. I note, for example, that France, where anti-Semitism, racism, and anti-Islamism (the the crude sense) are well-known, apparently has a Muslim Minister of Justice. We haven’t had a Muslim cabinet member yet. Indeed, one well-known pundit freaked at a Muslim member of Congress.
_”The reduction in violence was supposed to be a means to an end, not the end itself”_
And the oil sharing law is a means as well, isnt it? Did we invade and occupy Iraq to establish oil sharing laws? The point of oil sharing was to prevent a civil war. A civil war is no long eminent, so perhaps oil sharing isnt a top priority just this second?
Mark B. I disagree. Some civil wars are more eminent than others.
Fred:
Several years ago I had a rather intense debate online with Larry Johnson, during which he adopted the position that the number of terrorist attacks had increased in the wake of the Iraq War. I suggested that not only was this probably an artifact of better reporting, but that the average quality of the attacks had declined significantly since 9/11. Moreover, the mere fact that the enemy had increased their effort is not prima facie evidence that what we’re doing isn’t working. Case in point: The Battle of the Bulge, Iwo Jima, etc. Larry hasn’t been trumpeting very much lately about increased terrorist attacks, although I’ve been loathe to rub his nose in it.
The issue is not whether we happen to be experiencing a reversal, because reversals are inevitable in war. The issue is that withdrawal would precipitate a catastrophe, so the only real option is to simply “get it right.” Obama adopted a position that was politically expecedient, but that had no real strategic chance of success. This is a matter of both character and judgment. Or, in other words, it’s a matter of leadership (or the lack of it).
You can draw very similar lessons from the Copperhead opposition to the Civil War leading up to the 1864 election, up to the point that Sherman sacked Atlanta. That plus the fact that Sherman issued furloughs allowing Union soldiers to vote in their home districts, over the opposition of the Copperheads, settled the issue.
The option in the face of enemy success does not seem to be surrender, at least to me. If we really haven’t been winning, the option would seem to be the “by the right flank” of Grant and Sherman, rather than the McClellan appeasement option, no matter what the “facts” on the ground happen to be. Moreover, communicating that resolve to the enemy might very well be sufficient to convince them to give up the takfirist position, as Dr. Fadl seems to be demonstrating.
Al Qaeda is currently in disarray. It isn’t an accident.
Andrew #8:
Still strikes me as niggardly. If you’re in a street fight the fact that the opponent is on the ground seems more important than whether the victim you’re defending happens to be ready to tag. But that’s just me.
_”Mark B. I disagree. Some civil wars are more eminent than others.”_
They may or not be true. What is true is that a civil war isnt likely to break out next month over oil revenues. Maybe in a year, maybe in 3. But whether or not the political deal is struck this week or next September is simply not likely to be decisive. A year ago it may have seemed that way, may even have been that way. But not now, there would appear to be more breathing room than anyone hoped. Hell even Joe Kline “acknolwedges”:http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/06/progress_in_iraqand_what_to_do.html _that_.
Please forgive my spelling on this thread. As well as blatant threadnapping.
“Obviously, Obama’s political style and history are tailored for the American road to elective office—but let me ask: four years ago, how plausible did an Obama presidency seem?”
I had Obama pegged as being the next annointed one ever since I saw the press fawn over him when he was the keynote speaker that the DNC. I pretty much knew four years ago he’d win the Democratic nomination ‘against all odds’.
I had seen that before, and in far more unlikely circumstances.
I saw Bill Clinton get similarly annointed after given a keynote address at a DNC in 1988 – a speach that was so bad that even the Democratic faithful in the audience booed him. Given how many affairs and dirty deals that I knew he’d been involved in, my young niave self just knew that there was no way he could ever fulfill his boyhood ambition to be President.
Yet there he was in 1992 weathering every crisis and still recieving the fawning adoration of the press.
An ideologically slanted press is a very powerful weapon.
Mark #13:
Good point. Didn’t notice the spelling.
We would appear to be transferring some of our Montesque/Madison “magic” to the problem of mediating between factions of a tribal society. It took us several false starts before we got the hang of it, but we may not have to carry the ball much longer. I’ve been reading Ernest Gellner’s *Conditions of Liberty* lately, and he seemed to think that Islamic civilization has evolved greater potential than one would think given the literalism and nihilism of the current “puritans.” If he’s right then once the takfirist virus has been dealt with, they may be in pretty good shape. (Gellner died before 9/11, so some of his insights seem a little quaint by today’s standards.)
“An ideologically slanted press is a very powerful weapon.”
As John McCain knows full well.
Tyler, that was a pretty good drive-by. Except drive-bys aren’t why we’re here. Verb. sap.
Is there mutual consent to hold Iraq to another thread?
Back at the ranch, Fox TV News referred to Michelle Obama as “Obama’s Baby Mama“. That makes me think we have a little further to go before crowing about racial open-mindedness in the United States.
A Canadian of my acquaintance recently had the decency to admit that truth, that Obama in all likelihood couldn’t even get close to their equivalent of nomination in Canada. He then had the indecency to turn around and follow it up in the same breath with words equivalent to, and as blunt as, “But in America, he’ll just get shot.” It might have been closer to, “But you Americans will just shoot him.”
This is not a-typical from him.
He wonders why I won’t let him in my house.
(The incident that Andrew points to at #19, above is also shocking. And Fox wonders why I don’t watch it.)
Re the Canadian acquaintance: What a… prat.
Was thinking of another four letter word that ends with a “t”, but will refrain.
As for the Fox titling, it’s gauche and idiotic, but is it truly shocking? Meh. Jane’s Addiction kind of had it right. Hardly anything is shocking any more.
Is it really necessary to comment on the Canadians? Their largesse is primarily a matter of having a benevolent friendship with the biggest kid in the planetary schoolyard. Were they alone on this continent, let alone on the stage of nations, it’d be an entirely different story. Consider the Belgians, who are another subordinate power. Their neighbors aren’t nearly so benign, and it’s no surprise they’re the most bigoted nation in the West. It’s a matter of the the sense of security.
Yawn! Wake me up when we get back to the original topic. 🙂
“But just as hawks were not giving up in 06, doves are not going to give up now”. Define Dove?
I read some time ago that absent am oils sharing law the central government was sending oil revenue money to the provinces (Sorry. I did not save a copy and cannot find a record in Google)