From The Times - London
July 22, 2008
Eventually, we will all hate Obama too


What makes America such an indispensable power is precisely what makes anti-Americanism inevitable
David Aaronovitch


It amuses me that some of those who criticise the present US Administration for its Manichaeism - its division of the world into good and evil - themselves allocate all past badness to Bush and all prospective goodness to Obama. As the ever-improving myth has it, on the morning of September 12, 2001, George W. and America enjoyed the sympathy of the world. This comradeship was destroyed, in a uniquely cavalier (or should we say cowboyish) fashion, through the belligerence, the carelessness, the ideological fixity and the rapacity of that amorphous and useful category of American flawed thinker, the neoconservative. They just threw it away.

But there isn't anything that can't be fixed with a sprinkling of genuine fairy dust. What Bush lost, Obama can find. Where the Texan swaggered, the Chicagoan can glide. Emotional literacy will replace flat iteration, persuasion will supplant force as the preferred means of achieving what needs to be achieved, empathy will trump narcissism. Those who hate America may find their antipathy waning, those who were alarmed by unilateralism will warm to softer, moral leadership. A new dawn will break, will it not?

Some on the Left are getting their count-me-outs in already, realising that Mr Obama is, after all, a big-game hunter, a full-trousered American candidate. They, I think, are more realistic than those who manage on one day to laud the Democrat as not being a real politician, and on the next to praise him for his sensible left-trimming when seeking the party's nomination and his equally sensible centre-hugging once it was in the bag. I say the antis are more realistic because, eventually, we will hate or ridicule Mr Obama too - provided, of course, that he is elected and serves two full terms.

George W.Bush, of course, represents a particular kind of offence to European sensibilities. He blew out Kyoto, instead of pretending to care about it and then not implementing it, which is what our hypocrisies require. He took no exquisite pains to make us feel consulted. He invaded Iraq in the name of freedom and then somehow allowed torturers to photograph each other in the fallen dictator's house of tortures. He is not going to run Franklin Roosevelt a close race for nomination as the second greatest president of the US.

BACKGROUND
Iraq: we want US troops out in two years
The Europhiles are not the future, Mr Obama
Our leaders go after some Obama magic
Obama fears the Blair effect as tour continues


But even if he had been a half-Chinese ballet-loving Francophone, he would have been hated by some who should have loved him, for there isn't an American president since Eisenhower who hasn't ended up, at some point or other, being depicted by the world's cartoonists as a cowboy astride a phallic missile. It happened to Bill Clinton when he bombed Iraq; it will happen to Mr Obama when his reinforced forces in Afghanistan or Pakistan mistake a meeting of tribal elders for an unwise gathering of Taleban and al-Qaeda. Then the new president (or, if McCain, the old president) will be the target of that mandarin Anglo-French conceit that our superior colonialism somehow gives us the standing to critique the Yank's naive and inferior imperialism.

Often those who express their tiresome anti-Americanism will suggest, as do some of the more disingenuous anti-Zionists with regard to anti-Semitism - that they, of course, are not anti-American, and that no one really is. But, coming as I do from an Anti-American tradition that wasn't afraid to proclaim itself, I think I know where the corpses are interred. For example, the current production of Bernstein's Candide at the English National Opera is a classic of elite anti-Americanism, in which we are invited to laugh at the philistine invocation of “Democracy, the American Way and McDonald's”. The laughter that accompanied this feeble satire showed our proper understanding that we, the audience, had a proper concept of democracy, and would never soil ourselves with an Egg McMuffin.

The true irony went way above the sniggerers' heads, which was that Leonard Bernstein was the American cultural import that we were, at that very moment, enjoying. But the prejudice is that American culture has had a negative influence on the world, tabloidising our journalism, subverting the gentle land of Ealing with the violent pleasures of Die Hard 10 and commercialising our most intimate lives. And so we have ever complained; my father, back in the early Fifties, once wrote an entire communist pamphlet about the terrible effect of Hollywood and jazz on the land of Shakespeare and Elgar.

This week you could hear the author Andrew O'Hagan on Radio 4, reading from his collection of self-conscious essays, The Atlantic Ocean, in which - despite his own claims - every impact of American life on Britain is somehow configured negatively. He writes of an exported popular culture “born in the suburbs of America” and defined as “Spite as entertainment. Shouting as argument. Dysfunction as normality. Desires as rights. Shopping as democracy.” This in the country that has sent Big Brother, Pop Idol, Wife Swap and Location, Location, Location over the Atlantic in the other direction, while taking delivery of Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Wire.

I should admit that I am irked by O'Hagan's dismissal of the “idiots who supported that bad and stupid war (ie, Iraq)” and am willing to match my idiocy against his intelligence in any debating forum that he cares to name. More interesting, though, is the desire to blame America. For all that O'Hagan claims that the US has lost its purchase on the world's affections, it remains the chosen destination for the most ambitious of the planet's migrants. For all that he claims that this change in sentiment is recent, I can't help recalling those - the most honest - who commented, in journals he writes for and on the very day after September 11, that the Americans had had it coming.

In part I think that anti-Americanism is linked to a view of change as decline. The imagination is that dynamic capitalism, associated with the US, is destroying our authentic lives, with our own partly willing connivance. It is a continuing and - at the moment - constant narrative, uniting left and right conservatives, which will usually take in the 19th- century radical journalist William Cobbett (conveniently shorn of his anti-Semitism), and end with an expression of disgust over the Dome, the Olympics or Tesco. Just as bird flu is a disease from out of the East, runaway modernity is a scourge originating to the West.

So Barack Obama, en fête around the world, will one day learn that there is no magical cure for the envy of others. What makes America the indispensable power (and even more indispensable in the era of the new China), is precisely what makes anti-Americanism inevitable.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article4374704.ece

Obama already sucks!

Eventually? fuck that I hate him.

Eventually I already despise him and his politics if you want to call them that

Thats way too long for me to read. But yeah i already hate him, the article wont make a diff.

I'm guessing McCain is hated so much already he's not even mentioned.

Quoted: Eventually? fuck that I hate him.

LOL.... Europeans... always behind the times...

I simply can't stand writers who insist on using that kind of masturbatory prose.

I must be ahead of the curve.

Damn, I hated Osama Obama the first time I ever heard of him!

Mike

Quoted: I'm guessing McCain is hated so much already he's not even mentioned.

A recent poll in the UK found that Obama is favored 5 to 1 over McCain.

I travel a lot overseas (last week in Brazil, next week Mexico, etc.) and get asked all the time about Obama as the next President. I keep warning folks in other countries that this is far from a forgone conclusion. They look at me with utter amazement. Seriously. I have yet to speak with 1 non-US citizen who is not utterly convinced that Obama will win, and do so by a HUGE margin. When I point out the recent Rassmussen poll that shows a tie, they simply have no reply.

Beat the rush: hate Obama now!  

Quoted: Quoted: I'm guessing McCain is hated so much already he's not even mentioned. A recent poll in the UK found that Obama is favored 5 to 1 over McCain.

Color me suprised.

I hated Obama before it became fashionable.

decent article, spot on.

*big edit for berevity* ...i'm tired of europe in general. if they understood, they'd be HERE. their elitism is a symptom of their ignorance.

Quoted: I hated Obama before it became fashionable.

How about in 2004 when he gave a speech at the D national convention.  I knew he was going to be a problem then.

FUCK THAT POS MOTHERFUCKER

Quoted: I simply can't stand writers who insist on using that kind of masturbatory prose.

Indeed.

  I hope someday we can produce a leader ALL the eurotrash can get behind. They have produced so many wonderful leaders in the 20th century (with spiffy uniforms ) Like Stalin,Hitler,Mussolini,Franco, Tito, Lenin, Vlad Putin,Ceacescu  Chirac, DeGaul etc.


 Thee is so much WTF in that article I don't know where to start. Bush is a monster because he put terrorists in prison, but FDR is a great president ? The same president that put innocent Japanese Americans prison and sold out Eastern Europe to Stalin at Yalta ? That's their idea of a great President ?

Quoted: ....Seriously. I have yet to speak with 1 non-US citizen who is not utterly convinced that Obama will win, and do so by a HUGE margin. When I point out the recent Rassmussen poll that shows a tie, they simply have no reply.

It's happened before. Remember 2004 and all of those incredulous "How could so many be so wrong" headlines with pictures of George Bush in UK papers? They just don't get  that we would vote for someone who has American interests at heart,rather than the interests of the world. Why should they? If I just watched US TV news and the BBC and read Der Spiegel,I'd probably think the Obamassiah was a foregone conclusion,too.
Personally,I love being an overly enthusiastic conservative when our international co-workers are in the office and start talking politics.  It just brings out the ugly American in me!

Quoted: Quoted: I hated Obama before it became fashionable. How about in 2004 when he gave a speech at the D national convention.  I knew he was going to be a problem then.

They announced him as a rising star and possible President at that time.  I think thay they were thinking 2012, post Kerry, but it was in the works then.

I don't know what I hate more, Obama, or Europe.

Once again arfcom is ahead of the curve.  

If non-Americans prefer a candidate in our election, all the more reason to vote for the opponent! I don't want a universal president that gives a shit about what the rest of the world "feels" about us; I pay for a worker for me and mine, and our country. Does China take a poll when they appoint their next "Dear Leader" as to their acceptability to all other countries?  

Eventually already happened to me.

Quoted: I don't know what I hate more, Obama, or Europe.

Can't we send him to France?

I've already purchases a couple lowers ... and he's only a candidate.

Eventually, Hell!! I already hate the Son of a bitch!! Gun grabbing Commie prick!!

Quoted: Quoted: I simply can't stand writers who insist on using that kind of masturbatory prose. Indeed.

That why I quit reading it.

Quoted: decent article, spot on. *big edit for berevity* ...i'm tired of europe in general. if they understood, they'd be HERE. their elitism is a symptom of their ignorance.

+1

basically, America's awesomeness is the reason for anti-Americanism.  It's called envy...

Quoted: Quoted: decent article, spot on. *big edit for berevity* ...i'm tired of europe in general. if they understood, they'd be HERE. their elitism is a symptom of their ignorance. +1 basically, America's awesomeness is the reason for anti-Americanism.  It's called envy...

I love it. QFT.

then somehow allowed torturers to photograph each other in the fallen dictator's house of tortures

I no fan of Jorge, but that's just stupid.

Quoted:   I hope someday we can produce a leader ALL the eurotrash can get behind. They have produced so many wonderful leaders in the 20th century (with spiffy uniforms ) Like Stalin,Hitler,Mussolini,Franco, Tito, Lenin, Vlad Putin,Ceacescu  Chirac, DeGaul etc. ......................

Don't diss the Italians,

Comprehensive list of Italy's governments since the Second World War up to d'Amato II
More than one cabinet a year in half a century.
Name of the cabinet; parties; date; duration (based on a list established by an Italian daily):


De Gasperi 1 Dc Pci Psi Pli Dl Paz; December 10, 1945 to July 1, 1946; 203 days.

De Gasperi 2 Dc Pci Psi Pri; July 13, 1946 to January 20, 1947; 191 days.

De Gasperi 3 Dc Pci Psi; February 2, 1947 to May 13, 1947; 100 days.

De Gasperi 4 Dc Pli Psli Pri; May 31, 1947 to May 12, 1948; 347 days.

De Gasperi 5 Dc Pli Psli Pri; May 23, 1948 to January 12, 1950; 599 days.

De Gasperi 6 Dc Psli Pri; January 27, 1950 to July 16, 1951; 535 days.

De Gasperi 7 Dc Pri; July 26, 1951 to June 29, 1953; 704 days.

De Gasperi 8 monocolore Dc; July 16, 1953 to July 28, 1953; 12 days.

Pella monocolore Dc; August 17, 1953 to January 5, 1954; 141 days.

Fanfani 1 monocolore Dc; January 18, 1954 to January 30, 1954; 12 days.

Scelba Dc Psdi Pli; February 10, 1954 to June 22, 1955; 497 days.

Segni 1 Dc Psdi Pli; July 6, 1955 to May 5, 1957; 670 days.

Zoli monocolore Dc; May 19, 1957 to June 19, 1958; 396 days.

Fanfani 2 Dc Psdi; July 1, 1958 to January 26, 1959; 209 days.

Segni 2 monocolore Dc; February 15, 1959 to February 24, 1960; 374 days.

Tambroni monocolore Dc; March 25, 1960 to July 19, 1960; 116 days.

Fanfani 3 monocolore Dc; July 26, 1960 to February 2, 1962; 556 days.

Fanfani 4 Dc Psdi Pri; February 21, 1962 to May 16, 1963; 449 days.

Leone 1 monocolore Dc; June 21, 1963 to November 5, 1963; 137 days.

Moro 1 Dc Psi Psdi Pri; December 4, 1963 to June 26, 1964; 205 days.

Moro 2 Dc Psi Psdi Pri; July 22, 1964 to January 21, 1966; 548 days.

Moro 3 Dc Psi Psdi Pri; February 23, 1966 to June 5, 1968; 833 days.

Leone 2 monocolore Dc; June 24, 1968 to November 19, 1968; 148 days.

Rumor 1 Dc Psu Pri; December 12, 1968 to July 5, 1969; 205 days.

Rumor 2 monocolore Dc; August 5, 1969 al 07/02/70; 186 days.

Rumor 3 Dc Psi Psdi Pri; March 27, 1970 to July 6, 1970; 101 days.

Colombo Dc Psi Psdi Pri; August 6, 1970 to January 15, 1972; 527 days.

Andreotti 1 monocolore Dc; February 17, 1972 to February 26, 1972; 9 days.

Andreotti 2 Dc Psdi Pli; June 26, 1972 to June 12, 1973; 351 days.

Rumor 4 Dc Psi Psdi Pri; July 7, 1973 to March 2, 1974; 230 days.

Rumor 5 Dc Psi Psdi; March 14, 1974 to October 3, 1974; 203 days.

Moro 4 Dc Pri; November 23, 1974 to January 7, 1976;  406 days.

Moro 5 monocolore Dc; February 12, 1976 to April 30, 1976; 78 days.

Andreotti 3 monocolore Dc; July 29, 1976 to January 16, 1978; 536 days.

Andreotti 4 monocolore Dc; March 11, 1978 to January 31, 1979; 326 days.

Andreotti 5 Dc Pri Psdi; March 20, 1979 to March 31, 1979; 11 days.

Cossiga 1 Dc Psdi Pli; August 4, 1979 to March 19, 1980; 228 days.

Cossiga 2 Dc Psi Pri; April 4, 1980 to September 27, 1980; 176 days.

Forlani Dc Psi Psdi Pri; October 18, 1980 to May 26, 1981; 220 days.

Spadolini Dc Psi Psdi Pri Pli; June 28, 1981 to August, 1982; 405 days.

Spadolini 2 Dc Psi Psdi Pri Pli; August 23, 1982 to November 13, 1982; 82 days.

Fanfani 5 Dc Psi Psdi Pli; December 1, 1982 to April 29, 1983; 149 days.

Craxi 1 Dc Psi Psdi Pri Pli; August 4, 1983 to June 27, 1986; 1058 days.

Craxi 2 Dc Psi Psdi Pri Pli; August 1, 1986 to March 3, 1987; 214 days.

Fanfani 6 Dc Indipendenti; April 17, 1987 to April 28, 1987; 11 days.

Goria Dc Psi Pri Psdi Pli; July 28, 1987 to March 11, 1988; 227 days.

De Mita Dc Psi Pri Psdi Pli; April 13, 1988 to May 19, 1989; 401 days.

Andreotti 6 Dc Psi Pri Psdi Pli; July 22, 1989 to March 29, 1991; 615 days.

Andreotti 7 Dc Psi Psdi Pli; April 12, 1991 to April 24, 1992; 378 days.

Amato 1 Dc Psi Psdi Pli; June 28, 1992 to April 22, 1993; 298 days.

Ciampi Dc Psi Psdi Pli; April 28, 1993 to April 16, 1994; 353 days.

Berlusconi Fi Ln An Ccd Udc; May 10, 1994 to December 22, 1994; 226 days.

Dini Cabinet of "technocrats"; January 17, 1995 to may 17, 1996; 486 days.

Prodi L'Ulivo; May 18, 1996 to October 9, 1998; 874 days.

D'Alema L'Ulivo Pdci Udr; October 21, 1998 to December 18, 1999; 423 days.

D'Alema 2 Ulivo Pdci Udeur; December 22, 1999 to April 19, 2000; 119 days.

Amato 2 Centrosinistra; since April 25, 2000.

In the interest of bandwidth preservation I won't add the rest.

Oh yeah, the Brits are going to love when their economy collapses with the rest of the Western world when Iraq falls into chaos and oil prices sky rocket under the Great Obama.

Hahaha..they just hate Bush based on moral reasons wait until Obama's policies hit even them in the pocket book.

Great article.

Severe hatred causes stress which is not good for the individual bod. So rather than getting all worked up over that POS Obama, lets quote me as saying I completely dislike the leftist mofo and until Jan. 20th 2009 if he gets it let it go at that. Should the US be so unfortunate, I may can crank up and go into high gear w/overdrive in the
hatred department. But fuck him anyway !

(sigh)...ARFCOM. They mean well, I swear.

Great article, thanks for posting.

Quoted: Quoted: I hated Obama before it became fashionable. How about in 2004 when he gave a speech at the D national convention.  I knew he was going to be a problem then.

I was still in hs

Quoted: Quoted: I hated Obama before it became fashionable. How about in 2004 when he gave a speech at the D national convention.  I knew he was going to be a problem then.

That's when I started hating him.

I beat you all, I hated him when he was a POS state senator

PEAK HATE!!!!

I just love how so many in Europe pan the Egg McMuffin.  When I traveled through London and large areas of Bavaria, they all served LUNCH MEAT with breakfast!  Someone care to explain how lunch meat for breakfast somehow supersedes a McSandwich?    It's all trash food.

...mandarin Anglo-French conceit that our superior colonialism somehow gives us the standing to critique the Yank's naive and inferior imperialism.

QFT.

For you lazy bums who won't even take the time to read the article, but WILL take the time to criticise the author, HE'S ON OUR SIDE!

And for the lazy bums who call that "mastubatory prose," your intellectual laziness is only exceeded by your physical laziness.  It's about a 5 minute read even if you move your lips at top speed.

And they wonder why people use term "dumbing down of America."

Eventually????

Hell I have hated him for quite a few days now---am I gonna hate him more?  Damn...I don't even know if that is possible...

Quoted: Eventually???? Hell I have hated him for quite a few days now---am I gonna hate him more?  Damn...I don't even know if that is possible...

I always tell my kids it's only okay to hate vegetables, not people. We may need to make an exception.

Quoted: ...mandarin Anglo-French conceit that our superior colonialism somehow gives us the standing to critique the Yank's naive and inferior imperialism. QFT. For you lazy bums who won't even take the time to read the article, but WILL take the time to criticise the author, HE'S ON OUR SIDE! And for the lazy bums who call that "mastubatory prose," your intellectual laziness is only exceeded by your physical laziness.  It's about a 5 minute read even if you move your lips at top speed. And they wonder why people use term "dumbing down of America."

Didn't say he wasn't on our "side" just that I don't care for his writing style.  And I did read the whole thing, thank you.

Quoted: I simply can't stand writers who insist on using that kind of masturbatory prose.

Is that what it's called? I thought it was long winded, self righteous babbly blab.

P.S.
I hate him now.

Damn, I'm on the cutting edge for once!

Quoted: Quoted: I'm guessing McCain is hated so much already he's not even mentioned. A recent poll in the UK found that Obama is favored 5 to 1 over McCain. I travel a lot overseas (last week in Brazil, next week Mexico, etc.) and get asked all the time about Obama as the next President. I keep warning folks in other countries that this is far from a forgone conclusion. They look at me with utter amazement. Seriously. I have yet to speak with 1 non-US citizen who is not utterly convinced that Obama will win, and do so by a HUGE margin. When I point out the recent Rassmussen poll that shows a tie, they simply have no reply.

I find that fascinating. I am sure after McCain wins we will get article after article from the foreign press on what's wrong with us, as well as a few dozen books celebrating our ignorance for not worshipping that socialist elistist.

Quoted: I hated Obama before it became fashionable.

You should try hating Obama over here. I'm feeling pretty lonely. I haven't met more than a couple of people who support McCain.

Quoted: Quoted: decent article, spot on. *big edit for berevity* ...i'm tired of europe in general. if they understood, they'd be HERE. their elitism is a symptom of their ignorance. +1 basically, America's awesomeness is the reason for anti-Americanism.  It's called envy...

My grand mother told me that it was the same thing when the british still had their empire. Alot of people around Europe disliked them.

Quoted: Quoted: I hated Obama before it became fashionable. You should try hating Obama over here. I'm feeling pretty lonely. I haven't met more than a couple of people who support McCain.

I'm the only McCain supporter here I can find.

Quoted: I don't know what I hate more, Obama, or Europe.

How can you hate a continent?

j