Well, now we have it -- a columnist from the Britain's socialist rag, the Guardian, is warning America of the dire consequences if we Americans don't fall in line with world opinion and vote for Barack Obama like the world wants us to.

If Americans choose McCain, they will be turning their back on the rest of the world, choosing to show us four more years of the Bush-Cheney finger. And I predict a deeply unpleasant shift.

Until now, anti-Americanism has been exaggerated and much misunderstood: outside a leftist hardcore, it has mostly been anti-Bushism, opposition to this specific administration. But if McCain wins in November, that might well change. Suddenly Europeans and others will conclude that their dispute is with not only one ruling clique, but Americans themselves. For it will have been the American people, not the politicians, who will have passed up a once-in-a-generation chance for a fresh start - a fresh start the world is yearning for.

And the manner of that decision will matter, too. If it is deemed to have been about race - that Obama was rejected because of his colour - the world's verdict will be harsh. In that circumstance, Slate's Jacob Weisberg wrote recently, international opinion would conclude that "the United States had its day, but in the end couldn't put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race".

Even if it's not ethnic prejudice, but some other aspect of the culture wars, that proves decisive, the point still holds. For America to make a decision as grave as this one - while the planet boils and with the US fighting two wars - on the trivial basis that a hockey mom is likable and seems down to earth, would be to convey a lack of seriousness, a fleeing from reality, that does indeed suggest a nation in, to quote Weisberg, "historical decline". Let's not forget, McCain's campaign manager boasts that this election is "not about the issues."

Of course I know that even to mention Obama's support around the world is to hurt him. Incredibly, that large Berlin crowd damaged Obama at home, branding him the "candidate of Europe" and making him seem less of a patriotic American. But what does that say about today's America, that the world's esteem is now unwanted? If Americans reject Obama, they will be sending the clearest possible message to the rest of us - and, make no mistake, we shall hear it.

Well, I've got a message for Jonathan Freedland and the world he claims to speak for -- BUGGER OFF! Because you are, on one level, correct -- I, and many other Americans, don't give a damn about your "esteem". Having seen our nation pull Europe (and much of the rest of the world) out of the cauldron of militarism and dictatorship twice in the twentieth century by intervening in two world wars -- and then standing as a bulwark between freedom and communist tyranny for half a century -- we Americans feel like we have more than earned the right to make our decisions for ourselves on who will lead our nation. We don't want, much less need, your approval.

besides, I think back to the last time that the rest of the world had such a serious concern about the wisdom of allowing Americans to pick their own leaders. It was my senior year of high school, and the choice that was so objectionable was Ronald Reagan. I seem to recall that Americans rather intuitively made the right choice on that one -- and that our choice turned out to have loads of benefits for a world that objected to our choosing "that cowboy". And while we had to listen to a great deal of anti-American whining from the Euro-trash, history has judged that choice to have been correct.

I've no choice that, for the third straight election, the choice of a Republican president will again be the correct one. Regardless of what "the world community" thinks of the voice of the American people.

Posted by: Greg at 10:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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