The World has a Change of Viscera

According to Philip Stephens, "In recent years, the anti-Bushism born of Iraq, Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo has hardened into visceral anti-Americanism." But seems it ain't hardened into concrete and must be made of ice because the blow-torch election of Sen. Obama to the Presidency has melted it. "The election confounds the prevailing image (always something of a distortion) of a nation described only by its arrogance and indifference." Well, good. I'm glad they're confounded, confound it! But is it arrogant to be indifferent? Here's more (FT.com Obama’s victory: a change the world should believe in):

With Dick Cheney, the vice-president, hovering ever present in the wings, few have believed that the [Bush] administration’s motives could be anything but bad, its embrace of engagement anything but tactical. Mr Bush completely lost the benefit of the doubt.

That will change. It will no longer be possible (it should never have been so with Mr Bush) for America’s adversaries to draw moral equivalence between the president of the world’s most powerful democracy and tyrants, despots and terrorists everywhere: Mr Obama as the Great Satan?

In demonstrating the infinite capacity of the US to reinvent itself by rediscovering idealism, Mr Obama robs friend and foe of their alibis.

The way I look at it, anti-Americanism comes in two types: that based in self interest and that based in emotion. Typically, the self interested anti-Americans are using it to manipulate the emotional ones. During this stage it is more their problem than ours. Only when the Demagogues take over does it become ours -- typically because of what they are doing to everyone but us.

There is only one difference between the anti-Americanism of the recent past and of that going forward: When Bush was President, the media cared (or pretended to) and going forward it won't. That is because their interest in anti-Americanism was utilitarian in nature (something to whack Republicans with) and its utility is now gone. In fact it was they who drew the "moral equivalence." The adversaries of America need only repeat it.

Those who need anti-Americanism as a political crutch will continue to use it at the expense of those who need it as an emotional one. We just won't hear much about it. I grant you, this will be an improvement.

Mr. Stephens goes on:

A week ago Moscow’s latest threat to site its missiles on Poland’s borders might have been greeted with a pained shrug: after all, Russia, many in Europe would have said, had been provoked by Mr Bush.

As it was, the sour response of Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, to Mr Obama’s victory spoke to his own failure to grasp the significance of the event. Moscow has precious few friends even now. Henceforth it will find it a lot harder to hide its belligerence behind America’s unpopularity. The same might be said of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and one or two others.

There is an important lesson here for Washington’s allies, too. Mr Bush has been an excuse for inaction. Many Europeans have spent the past few years carping from the sidelines: the US has been messing things up everywhere, so why should they contribute anything to global security?

Apparently a new day has dawned and the Russians have hit the snooze button. But not to worry, the Europeans are already making coffee and croissants.

Actually, as his supporters on the left know, President Elect Obama has pledged to kill anti-missile defense. Now when he abandons missile defense (and the radar and missile sites in Poland) it will look like he folded in front of the Russian threat.

I once had a girl friend who explained to me the difference between fashion and style. So let me put it this way: Obama may have fashion. But the Russians, they have style.