December 16, 2009

BARACK OBAMA, AMERICAN:

Obama is not saviour of the world. He's still an American president (Jonathan Freedland, 12/15/09, guardian.co.uk)

For the second time in just over a week, Barack Obama is on his way to Scandinavia, his mission once again to confront impossible expectations with a cold bucket of reality. Last week he was in Oslo to pick up a Nobel peace prize, apologetically explaining that in the real world away from Norwegian dreams he was a war president who had just escalated the US presence in Afghanistan. On Friday he will touch down in Copenhagen, this time required to offer his regrets that, despite the hopes he stirred round the world a year ago, he will not be able to pull out his pen and, at a stroke, sign the deal that saves the planet.

This is fast becoming Obama's role on the world stage: managing disappointment. The gap between what international opinion demands of him and what he can deliver widens with each passing month, and it falls to him to explain why.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 16, 2009 6:48 AM
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