Not everyone in Europe approves

The MSM has touted this idea for some time: Barack Obama's is the Europeans' choice for the American presidency. Four years ago John Kerry was the Europeans' choice (or so we were told) and much good did it do him. What with the real government of the European Union member states not being elected by the people and the new constitution being imposed without so much as a by your leave with the establishment plotting how to sideline or ignore the one and only referendum on the subject, the idea of an elected democratic government has become a little fuzzy. But that is what they have in the United States of America and it is the people of that country who are going to elect the President as well as Congress.

It is not, however, entirely true that everybody in Europe is all that entranced by the spectacle of a rather ignorant American politico doing a somewhat premature victory lap round the various countries, gathering thousands of chanting supporters and using national symbols of other countries as a background to his campaign.

Wolfram Weimer, editor of the German policial monthly Cicero, explains on Pajamas Media why he thinks Obama's idea (or his campaign's idea) of speaking before the Brandenburg Gate is a silly one and show loack of foresight.

The puzzling image of Obama that is currently the subject of passionate debate in America has now reached Germany. Following the leaden Bush years, one would in fact like there to be a youthful, reformist new-start in America, such as Obama incarnates. But when one has a closer look, one begins to have doubts: To what end exactly is this magic of “change” — the word of the year in the USA — supposed to be used? Or is it the magic, after all, just a magic of self-promotion?

Obama’s foreign policy escapades of the last few weeks have many of his European friends wondering whether one will be able to be as enthusiastic about a President Obama as one is at the moment about the candidate. His latest flip-flops, whether on the Iraq War or the death penalty, give reason to suspect that Obama is a very great showman, but a very limited strategic thinker. He is indeed “amazing.”

This article appeared in German on a blog called Die Achse des Guten (The Axis of Good), which makes one hope that perhaps the blogosphere is beginning to make some inroads into the political process on this side of the Pond as well.

According to Rick Moran on American Thinker there are other dissenting voices, namely the Financial Times Deutschland.