Hurry, Vote for Obama, or the World's Gonna Be Mad!

The world's verdict will be harsh if the US rejects the man it yearns for
from Jonathan Freedland at the Guardian, via Mark Steyn in the Corner

"The world's verdict"? Is this a joke? What the hell does "the world's verdict" mean? And more importantly, as Steyn so ably lampoons, what is "the world" going to do about it? (His suggestions: "You mean economic sanctions? Expulsion from the Olympics? Moving the Oscars to Belgium?" and I'll add, "Pulling the UN from our shores?" God forbid.)

The whole piece is worth a read, as long as your blood pressure is relatively low, if only to get an idea of the dread that is apparently gripping not only domestic liberals, but those abroad as well. Yay, dread!

I guess the problem is that Freedland, along with the majority of domestic liberal politicians, seem to think that most voters in the US actually give a damn what he and the rest of the world think. We don't.

There's a reason that America hosts the UN, that America is the cultural touchstone for the rest of the world, that America is capable of fighting two wars and still feasibly threaten Russia. It's because we've followed a different path than the rest of the world, we haven't yet given in to European-style fecklessness and political correctness and socialism. Freedland seems to want to drag us down with him and the rest of once glorious Europe, into the near-third world that envelops much of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America.

Freedland even manages to quote, not once, but twice, the ridiculously flawed column at Slate by Jacob Weisberg from a couple weeks ago, in which Weisberg accused anyone voting against Barack Obama of racism.

And the manner of that decision will matter, too. If it is deemed to have been about race - that Obama was rejected because of his colour - the world's verdict will be harsh. In that circumstance, Slate's Jacob Weisberg wrote recently, international opinion would conclude that "the United States had its day, but in the end couldn't put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race".

Freedland wraps up with the following bit of champion asshattery (all emphasis mine):

Of course I know that even to mention Obama's support around the world is to hurt him. Incredibly, that large Berlin crowd damaged Obama at home, branding him the "candidate of Europe" and making him seem less of a patriotic American.

Sooo, Freedland finds it hard to believe that Obama voluntarily positioning himself as the "candidate of Europe" (or the world) would hurt him in America? Seriously? He finds that "incredible"? Where has he been for the past eight years or so? Believe it or not, most Americans don't want to be like Europeans! I know, incredible! Who wouldn't want a malfunctioning healthcare system, a socialistic nanny-state government, massive race/immigration riots, a completely ineffectual military, and an overwhelming sense of inferiority and decline?! Ooooh, sign me up!

But what does that say about today's America, that the world's esteem is now unwanted? If Americans reject Obama, they will be sending the clearest possible message to the rest of us - and, make no mistake, we shall hear it.

Huh, funny, apparently you haven't been listening for the past decade or so...but also - Hee! Europe's so cute when it gets all mad!