Below The Beltway

I’ve got serious problems with both of the major party candidates this year, but I’ve got to admit to a visceral reaction when I start reading news stories about what the rest of the world thinks we should do in November.

First, there’s a new poll from the BBC which purports to show that Barack Obama is the overwhelming choice of the citizens of every country except the United States:

People outside the US would prefer Barack Obama to become US president ahead of John McCain, a BBC World Service poll suggests.

Democrat Mr Obama was favoured by a four-to-one margin across the 22,500 people polled in 22 countries.

In 17 countries, the most common view was that US relations with the rest of the world would improve under Mr Obama.

If Republican Mr McCain were elected, the most common view was that relations would remain about the same.

(…)

The margin of those in favour of Mr Obama winning November’s US election ranged from 9% in India to 82% in Kenya, which is the birthplace of the Illinois senator’s father.

On average 49% preferred Mr Obama to 12% in favour of Mr McCain. Nearly four in 10 of those polled did not take a view.

Then some guy at the Guardian says that the United States will suffer the world’s wrath if we don’t vote for the guy they want:

Obama has stirred an excitement around the globe unmatched by any American politician in living memory. Polling in Germany, France, Britain and Russia shows that Obama would win by whopping majorities, with the pattern repeated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. If November 4 were a global ballot, Obama would win it handsomely. If the free world could choose its leader, it would be Barack Obama.

The crowd of 200,000 that rallied to hear him in Berlin in July did so not only because of his charisma, but also because they know he, like the majority of the world’s population, opposed the Iraq war. McCain supported it, peddling the lie that Saddam was linked to 9/11. Non-Americans sense that Obama will not ride roughshod over the international system but will treat alliances and global institutions seriously: McCain wants to bypass the United Nations in favour of a US-friendly League of Democracies. McCain might talk a good game on climate change, but a repeated floor chant at the Republican convention was “Drill, baby, drill!”, as if the solution to global warming were not a radical rethink of the US’s entire energy system but more offshore oil rigs.

If Americans choose McCain, they will be turning their back on the rest of the world, choosing to show us four more years of the Bush-Cheney finger. And I predict a deeply unpleasant shift.

Until now, anti-Americanism has been exaggerated and much misunderstood: outside a leftist hardcore, it has mostly been anti-Bushism, opposition to this specific administration. But if McCain wins in November, that might well change. Suddenly Europeans and others will conclude that their dispute is with not only one ruling clique, but Americans themselves. For it will have been the American people, not the politicians, who will have passed up a once-in-a-generation chance for a fresh start - a fresh start the world is yearning for.

The self-important Brit goes on:

For America to make a decision as grave as this one - while the planet boils and with the US fighting two wars - on the trivial basis that a hockey mom is likable and seems down to earth, would be to convey a lack of seriousness, a fleeing from reality, that does indeed suggest a nation in, to quote Weisberg, “historical decline”.

MichaelW at QandO speaks for me when he says:

America is not perfect, but we have driven a steady path towards perfectability. What has Europe done in this regard, aside from the “New Europe” that recently cast aside the yoke of Soviet oppression? We still have to fight your battles for you, and we still have to take the brunt of “world opinion” for having the wherewithal to do so. The “World” would have a lot more respect from us if they would do something — anything — to breed confidence in us yanks that they would take care of themselves for once, instead of berating us endlessly and cow-towing to every tinpot dictator with a Marxist message, or perceived grievance against the US. Start taking care of the problems around the world with action, instead of endless and useless words, and then we’ll talk.

Until that time, Mr. Freedland and his buddies can take their threats and shove then where the sun don’t shine. You all may like to talk tough, but this world is ruled by those who act tough. We don’t don’t take kindly to anyone telling us how to handle our affairs (see, e.g., American Revolution), especially when those same whiners can’t find the time to challenge the truly evil in this world.

If Obama’s European friends truly wanted to help him, they’d keep their mouths shut from now until Election Day. The more they talk, the more they tell us how disappointed they’ll be if the United States doesn’t make what they believe to be the right choice for President, the less likely it is that their preferred choice will actually win.

H/T: Atlas Blogged