A MAN NOT TO BE RECKONED WITH:

Obama's fans in Europe are in for a big surprise (John Vinocur, October 27, 2008, International Herald Tribune)

The question of Europe really hearing all that Obama says goes to other issues. I haven't found any research that would support the theory, but my guess is also that Europeans have only the faintest idea that Obama accepts the death penalty and won't fight for gun control, two eternal American sins as seen from abroad.

Soft power? Europe loves the notion (which rationalizes its low defense budgets) and tends to assign a virtue it sees in itself to Obama. Yet here's how the Democrat came out, in his last debate with McCain, on a centrally soft concern - education:

"It probably has more to do with our economic future than anything and that means it has a national security implication because there never has been a nation on Earth that saw its economy decline and continued to maintain its primacy as a military power. So we've got to get our education system right."

On Iran, there is little indication that European public opinion is listening closely either when Obama says, "We'll never take the military option off the table." Or on Georgia and Ukraine, when Obama insists that they must be given plans for NATO membership "immediately." Or on Afghanistan when he complains that some NATO countries, like Germany, are present there but not sharing the missions with the most murderous risks.

This also goes in part for Iraq. It would be Obama's America alone that has to make the decisions. When asked four years ago about French and German criticism of the Iraq war, Joe Biden, Obama's running mate, caricatured European leaders telling him they would have done things better:

"Blah blah blah, international cooperation," he mocked. "Give me a break, huh."

The Europeans are hoping for a President Obama precisely because they don't take him seriously and expect to be able to roll him. But allowing them to do so would immolate his presidency at home, so he'd have to act exaggeratedly tough just to prove himself to them and us. He'd have to out-Reagan Reagan and out-W W, which would be infinitely amusing.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 28, 2008 7:19 AM