A Planet of Perspectives

Our global perspectives page is supposed to be entertaining, illuminating, broadening, and stimulating.  In addition to featuring foreign (non-American) publications’ coverage of the election, this page will post commentary from all of our friends (and other people we don’t know very well) abroad who are witnessing this election season from places without electoral college votes.

Excerpt From Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “On 9/11 Anniversary, Political Impact Lingers,” September 11, 2008:

With a presidential election less than two months away, both candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, were also attending events to mark the anniversary. Both visited Ground Zero, the former site of the World Trade Center’s twin towers, and later addressed an event called the ServiceNation Summit at Columbia University in New York, calling attention to the importance of national service.

“I think the best way to commemorate and the best way to show our appreciation, and love, and sympathy for their families, for those who have sacrificed, is to serve our country,” McCain told the summit audience. “That’s what this forum is all about, serving our country, and that way we can assure their families it will never happen again. That way we can honor their service and their sacrifice to our nation.”

Although both campaigns had pledged to put aside the partisan bickering of the current campaign for the presidency, Obama in his summit appearance challenged what he suggested was a regrettable legacy of the Bush administration.

“The question is, how do we recreate that spirit, not just during times of tragedy, not just during 9/11, but how do we honor those who died, those who sacrificed, the firefighters, the police officers, how do we honor them every day?” Obama asked. “How does it reflect itself in our government, how does it reflect itself in how we conduct our own civic life? And my sense is that the country yearns for that, it’s hungry for it. And what has been missing is a president, and a White House, that taps into that yearning.”

The events of 9/11 have had a powerful impact on the U.S. views of the country’s role in world politics, prompting some to reconsider the direction of U.S. foreign policy and others to stand even more firmly on the economic and political principles of the past 50 years.

It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say these events have defined Bush’s presidency, according to two political observers interviewed by RFE/RL. In fact, they said, 9/11 and the subsequent Iraq war were at one time considered the leading issues of this year’s presidential campaign.

But as the mortgage-lending crisis has grown, U.S. political candidates have increasingly focused their attention on the economy — both America’s and the world’s.

Robert Spitzer, professor of political science at the State University of New York at Cortland, says 9/11 and the Iraq war have become secondary to the economy in the presidential campaign. The issue of national security — embodied in the Iraq war — looms less large to Americans because of the recent surge in U.S. troop levels ordered by Bush.

“[The Iraq war] is still an issue, but in terms of [U.S.] domestic politics, economic troubles have eclipsed it,” Spitzer says. “The price of gas, an economy that’s sputtering along — it may not be in a recession, but it seems like a recession to many people. So economic issues [are] number one, and Iraq has ben bumped further down the list.”

That view is not universal.

Patrick Basham, the founding director of the Democracy Institute, a Washington think tank, acknowledges that his view may put him in the minority of political analysts, but he believes national security and the economy are equally important to American voters.

“The irony is that Iraq has come back into the political equation, but it’s no longer all negative — or, should I say, the Republicans and John McCain have done a pretty good job of putting a very good, positive spin on those aspects of the war in Iraq that have improved,” Basham says. “They, of course, have had to grab hold of something positive that they could campaign on. It’s a wonderful illustration of how the country is split.”

From a daily e-mail bulletin of Czech wit & wisdom, Final Word, “Unwinnable wars,” August 14, 2008: 

John McCain said that Barack Obama “would rather lose a war (in Iraq) in order to win a political campaign.” Perhaps the same could be said of McCain and the White House with regard to Georgia. Although most Western analysts scoff at the idea, the ill-fated assault by Georgia on Russian-controlled South Ossetia fits perfectly into the modus operandi of Dick Cheney, who likes to fight unwinnable wars. Georgia paves the way for a new Cold War, an arms build-up, and a “third Bush term.” The idea that Shakashvili – whose name McCain can’t pronounce – would defy his 130 U.S. military advisers and the White House to go it alone against Russia is hard to swallow. If the U.S. did indeed egg him on and then hang him out to dry, it serves as a warning to the radar-happy Czech government. When push comes to shove with Russia, the U.S. is now unable or unwilling to come to the aid of an ally. 

From Hurriyet, a secular Turkish newspaper, “Barack Obama makes history as Democrats’ presidential nominee,” August 28, 2008: 

“Barack Obama and the Democrats have made history – no matter who wins the presidential election – by putting a black man at the top of a major party’s presidential ticket for the first time in American history.     His nomination Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention also put Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white American mother, just one victory away from taking charge of a nation where, just decades ago, many black people were unable to vote . . .         The long Democratic soap opera near an end – and the Obama campaign no doubt heaved a sigh of relief – after rousing speeches on Obamas behalf by the Clintons – Hillary on Tuesday and Bill Clinton, the former president, on Wednesday. They offered unabashed praise for their one-time opponent, whom they had sharply criticized through the grueling 18-month primary contest. That cleared the way for Obama to formally accept the party’s nomination before 75,000 people in a Denver sports stadium Thursday night. Given the country’s tortured racial history, the decision is a gamble for the Democrats as they symbolically opened the fall campaign to take back the White House from the Republicans, who will nominate McCain, the 72-year-old senator and former Vietnam war hero, next week. While healing the Democratic party may still prove difficult, the process began effusively Tuesday night when Hillary Clinton said Obama is ‘my candidate, and he must be our president.’ Bill Clinton echoed his wife’s words the night following, noting that she had told the convention she would do everything possible to get Obama elected. ‘That makes two of us,’ he said. For months, the former president had made little secret of his disappointment over his wife’s primary defeat. During her campaign, he faced criticism for his outbursts of anger and deprecatory comments about Obama. But his 1993-2001 presidency is warmly remembered by Democrats as a time of peace and prosperity, and Clinton was greeted with a huge and extended ovation as he took the stage. He was interrupted frequently by applause as he praised Obama. ‘Everything I’ve learned in my eight years as president and the work I’ve done since, inAmerica and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job,’ he said.”

 

Coming soon: International commentary from our friends abroad