Actually that's pretty astute, considering what Europeans are fed with their Pravdaesque mainstream media here. With Hillary Clinton's (the weebil) visit to Brussels, Washington is set to begin its European charm offensive but many Europeans are now uncertain whether the trans-Atlantic climate has really changed all that much. The Obama kool-aid buzz is wearing off.Europeans are discovering what their fellow American kool-aid drinkers have been finding out right after the election. The messiah talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk. It's one thing to run for president....it's quite another to govern.
Eloquent words and "spin" work better in a campaign than they do while governing. You can't blame Bush for everything, at some point it becomes your baby. Obama is discovering the laws of economics won't change, even for him....the one who walks on water.
Great leaders are thought of as such only after they've demonstrably pointed their constituents in the right direction. After all, when the lemming hordes jump off the cliff and into the sea, does it matter who the head lemming was, or even that there was a head lemming at all?
Obama has been president for a little more than five weeks. During his speech to a joint session of Congress last week, he showed what a skilled speaker he is and how persuasive he can be. But words delivered from Teleprompter Jesus, while important, have to line up with actions.
Promises have to be met. And a president who promised to be one thing cannot be another. At some point, the gap between good feelings and results, between perception and reality, closes.....can you spell STOCK MARKET!
Europeans still piqued over any apparent slight by Obama should take a more sanguine view of the transatlantic relationship, according to Michael Emerson, associate senior research fellow at the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies. The priority at the moment is the economic crisis. The transatlantic relationships is all about substantive questions, so Europe is just not an issue."Depending on which fawning US media appraisal you accept, Oprah is anything from America's most influential black woman to the world's most powerful woman.
Some have blamed her effusive support for Barack Obama, arguing that her bedrock fanbase of middle-class white women was upset that she didn't back a woman candidate. It's a nice idea, but the fact that she endorsed Obama less than 13 months ago and her ratings started dropping might tell you something.
Europeans, who are snobbish about American culture, are also shamed by American altruism. Once they have made their fortune, Americans devote themselves to giving it away. They lavish gifts on their school, their church, their college, or their hospital, taking an obvious pleasure in doing so.
