President George W. Bush and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, shake hands following their joint press availability Saturday, June 14, 2008, in Paris. (White House photo by Eric Draper)
Gerard Baker at the TimesOnline writes today that the Europeans will miss Bush the cowboy at the whipping post.
Here are a few of his observations:
Mr Bush, of course, is more lame duck than poisoned chicken. The eyes of the world are on his successor. But I still harbour a conviction that for all their expectation of a brave new dawn, the Europeans are going to miss Mr Bush in ways that they are only beginning to understand.
They’ll miss, first, having a villain in the White House. It’s a really convenient excuse to avoid doing anything yourself on pressing global concerns. And if Senator Obama wins, while the tone and nuances will sound more mellifluous to Europeans ears, most of those issues won’t change, and some might actually become a lot worse.
…My biggest worry, in fact, is that Mr Obama wins and the Democrats get a huge majority in Congress. The new president will be focused hard on two big policy challenges in Washington – dealing with Iraq and reforming US healthcare. He won’t have a lot of political capital to spare to stand up to a resurgent Democratic Party in Congress over trade policy, and the US could slide further towards protectionism.
Meanwhile, a big Republican defeat in November is quite likely to result in a very nasty isolationist turn inside the opposition party. The neoconservatives – those bad guys who believe that the US should spend blood and treasure trying to bring democracy to the great unwashed – will be discredited. President Obama could find himself under pressure from both parties in Congress to put US interests first.
It’s a good article and worth reading but Mr. Baker is missing three very important points.
1.) Barack Obama is further away from George Bush than he thinks. Not only is Obama the most liberal member of the senate but he has a strong background in anti-Americanism and belief in uber-diplomacy. This will be a disaster for Europe and the West. The radical Islamic regimes know this and that is why they are such strong supporters of an Obama win. Obama and Bush are like Reagan and Carter.
2.) Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less. Obama won’t. But, he will tax oil companies and sue OPEC. Watch how this plays out as gas prices continue to skyrocket.
3.) The Radical Islamic threat in Europe. If Mr. Baker believes isolationist Barack Obama will be there to assist when this powder keg explodes he is mistaken. If Mr. Baker does not see this as a growing threat in multicult Europe then he is blind.
For all of the anti-Bush sentiment in American and Europe, George Bush kept us safe.
Europe will miss their whipping boy. America will miss him, too.
UPDATE: Joshua added this:
Bush recognized Europe needs to relearn old lessons. Their tolerance and appeasement to tyrants is long known in history and now they are making the same mistakes again with Iran if they do not truly get tough. They cannot buy their way out of this. Carrots will not work. And with Marxist idiots like Brzezinski as Obama’s advisor, they will be left alone this time to fend for themselves. They will capitulate and throw Israel under the bus just like Marxist Brezinski.
God Bless you Mr. President for standing firm and believing in your troops, your generals like Petraeus and not caving in to the far left appeasers.
UPDATE 2: Kathryn Jean Lopez hear’s from a friend in Paris.
