Kathianne
06-14-2008, 07:17 AM
One man's opinion on what Europeans may regret come November:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4122437.ece
June 13, 2008
Europe will miss George Bush when he's not around
The US President is a useful bogeyman - but his successor's policies may not be much different
Gerard Baker
...
Mr Bush, of course, is more lame duck than poisoned chicken. The eyes of the world are on his successor. But I still harbour a conviction that for all their expectation of a brave new dawn, the Europeans are going to miss Mr Bush in ways that they are only beginning to understand.
They'll miss, first, having a villain in the White House. It's a really convenient excuse to avoid doing anything yourself on pressing global concerns. And if Senator Obama wins, while the tone and nuances will sound more mellifluous to Europeans ears, most of those issues won't change, and some might actually become a lot worse.
Despite the heat of Iraq in the presidential campaign now, I doubt that a President Obama will act much differently from President Bush, or for that matter from a President McCain. Conditions will either allow a quick US drawdown or they won't....
...As an adviser to Mr Obama noted recently at a transatlantic conference in Washington, the differences for Europe between a first Obama administration and the second Bush Administration will probably be smaller than the differences between the first and the second Bush terms.
My biggest worry, in fact, is that Mr Obama wins and the Democrats get a huge majority in Congress. The new president will be focused hard on two big policy challenges in Washington - dealing with Iraq and reforming US healthcare. He won't have a lot of political capital to spare to stand up to a resurgent Democratic Party in Congress over trade policy, and the US could slide further towards protectionism.
Meanwhile, a big Republican defeat in November is quite likely to result in a very nasty isolationist turn inside the opposition party. The neoconservatives - those bad guys who believe that the US should spend blood and treasure trying to bring democracy to the great unwashed - will be discredited. President Obama could find himself under pressure from both parties in Congress to put US interests first.
All of this means that the new president will have to spend a fair amount of time on trips to Europe explaining to his admirers why he really isn't able to deliver that much.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4122437.ece
June 13, 2008
Europe will miss George Bush when he's not around
The US President is a useful bogeyman - but his successor's policies may not be much different
Gerard Baker
...
Mr Bush, of course, is more lame duck than poisoned chicken. The eyes of the world are on his successor. But I still harbour a conviction that for all their expectation of a brave new dawn, the Europeans are going to miss Mr Bush in ways that they are only beginning to understand.
They'll miss, first, having a villain in the White House. It's a really convenient excuse to avoid doing anything yourself on pressing global concerns. And if Senator Obama wins, while the tone and nuances will sound more mellifluous to Europeans ears, most of those issues won't change, and some might actually become a lot worse.
Despite the heat of Iraq in the presidential campaign now, I doubt that a President Obama will act much differently from President Bush, or for that matter from a President McCain. Conditions will either allow a quick US drawdown or they won't....
...As an adviser to Mr Obama noted recently at a transatlantic conference in Washington, the differences for Europe between a first Obama administration and the second Bush Administration will probably be smaller than the differences between the first and the second Bush terms.
My biggest worry, in fact, is that Mr Obama wins and the Democrats get a huge majority in Congress. The new president will be focused hard on two big policy challenges in Washington - dealing with Iraq and reforming US healthcare. He won't have a lot of political capital to spare to stand up to a resurgent Democratic Party in Congress over trade policy, and the US could slide further towards protectionism.
Meanwhile, a big Republican defeat in November is quite likely to result in a very nasty isolationist turn inside the opposition party. The neoconservatives - those bad guys who believe that the US should spend blood and treasure trying to bring democracy to the great unwashed - will be discredited. President Obama could find himself under pressure from both parties in Congress to put US interests first.
All of this means that the new president will have to spend a fair amount of time on trips to Europe explaining to his admirers why he really isn't able to deliver that much.