The French Have a Word for It...Obama.

Expat Expounds on French View of US Race for White House OhioNewsBureau

Op-Ed-iTude

by John Michael Spinelli

COLUMBUS, OHIO: With 47 days left until Americans turn out in record numbers on November 4th to cast their ballot for either Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois or Arizona Republican Sen. John Sydney McCain as the next leader of the the world's most powerful country and the leader by default of the free world, the view from France and Spain, two countries not enthralled with the presidency of George W. Bush, and one outspoken American expatriate who has called Paris home for nearly a half century, is that electing McCain and his feisty, first-time national candidate Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, would send a signal to leaders and citizens of these countries that the failed foreign policy of the last eight years would continue whereas electing Mr. Obama would serve as an olive branch that better, happier relations were merely a few months away.

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Will McCain Continue the Bush Doctrine? The main Bush Doctrine, the explanation of which appeared to trip up Palin when ABC's news anchor Charlie Gibson asked it of her last week in her first interview with a major national media source, declares that the United States had not only possessed the right to treat countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups as terrorists themselves but that the president, defined by his unitary executive powers, could launch apre-emptive military attack on any country planning to attack it even if that attack wasn't possible for years to come. About 178 years after President James Monroe, the nation's 5th president, announced his eponymous doctrine warning European nations to no longer colonize or interfere with the affairs of the newly independent nations of the Americas if they wanted to keep the United States a neutral player, President Bush has blustered and sword-rattled his way through the last seven years, laying down strict conditions that unless met by perceived or listed foes of America -- like Iran, Syria, North Korea, among others -- would preclude discussions or negotiations with them on a variety of issues.

John Sydney McCain and his new-found running mate, the first woman to be nominated by Republicans to their national ticket, have made no statements that would leave any one to believe that their foreign policy principles would be any different in their first four-year term than President Bush's has been in his last eight years as head of the executive branch, which controls defense and foreign relations agencies. Concern for patching up the frayed relations that have made formerly strong allies of the US like France and Spain, among other countries vying for leadership in the European Union, uneasy if not wary with America, especially regarding the war in Iraq, may be justified given the comments made by Sen. McCain recently in an interview with a Spanish reporter.
McCain Says He Will Not Meet with President of Spain
In an article by Ben Stein at The Huffington Post, McCain is reported to have told a Spanish news outlet that he would not meet with Spain's elected president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, someone his comment implied was a world leader who wanted to harm America. "Would you be willing to meet with the head of our government, Mr. Zapatero?" Stein said the questioner asked in an exchange now being reported by several Spanish outlets.

McCain proceeded to launch into what appeared to be a boilerplate declaration about Mexico and Latin America, and not Spain, pressing the need to stand up to world leaders who want to harm America. "I will meet with those leaders who are our friends and who want to work with us cooperatively," McCain told the Spanish news reporter. At age 72, the oldest person to run for president, McCain's strident if not hostile comment about refusing to meet with the elected leader of a country that has progressed markedly in terms of its economic and political influence whencompared to where it was decades ago, could be explained away by believing it was just another of McCain's now famous gaffe's of memory or position switching on assorted issues. With strong, defiant leaders like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela taking political pot shots at President Bush, as he did at the UN when he joked he could smell the presence of the devil, as evidenced by the lingering odor of sulphur he said was left behind by Bush when he spoke before him, McCain may have launched into his talking points incontravention to such same-hemisphere trouble makers and conflated Zapatero with Chavez or Cuba's Fidel Castro, another famous leader the US has demonized for over a half century. But if McCain knew Zapatero was indeed the duly elected president of Spain and still made his statement that he wouldn't meet with him, then such a statement can only leader people here, in Spain and France that the Bush Doctrine will continue unchanged for the next four years should Republicansagian savor the sweet smell of victory in November.

But for those political observers who also consider themselves policy wonks, McCain statement is merely an indication that he is prosecuting his firmly held belief that a country like Spain, which initially participated in the Coalition of the Willing by sending troops and other resources to Iraq that were then combined with those of America to depose Saddam Hussein and fight terrorists in Iraq but which withdrew their troops under Zapatero when he came to power after the train bombings in 2004, has much to do to get back in his good graces. Such a stance, some say, makes him more hostile than even the Bush administration, which observers say is warming to the Spanish leader after a rocky initial period. EvenCondolezza Rice, a Bush loyalist and Secretary of State, recognizes Spain, under the Zapatero government, for its coalition efforts in Afghanistan as its reconstruction efforts in Haiti and counter terrorism tasks across the globe.
US Expatriate's View of Why French Root for Obama
One outspoken US expatriate I met in May of this year when I was last in Paris wrote to tell me that all of her French friends are rooting for Obama. Holly Warner, a native of Massachusetts who has spent the last 43 years living in France and now Paris, where she works with international student programs, says that her French friends, while they have no say in the vote, are at the mercy of US voter because their choice will definitely have a huge impact on them personally. Warner said she stayed glued to the hotel TV on a recent trip to a Greek island retreat, waiting for the announcement of Palin as McCain's choice for Veep. A professional who has dabbled in various careers during her decades living and working in France, Warner said electing a US president is "sort of a 'King of the World' position, where only the closest members of the Court - the king's favorites [US voters] get to vote." But among her US expatriate buddies, she said there is no debate. "It'sObama," she said, adding that her buddies feel like "cashing in their US passports for the most part" if McCain/Palin win in November.    She said of the Palin pick that she was as confused as some Republicans.  "I still remember the absolute confusion that seemed to reign even amongst Republicans," Warner noted, referring to the dazed look on the face of senior Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison when she was asked to comment on McCain's pick of Palin . Warner, who is active in Democrats Aboard, a group dedicated to organizing the community of expatriates in Europe and France, said the pick of Palin was a "slap in the face for American women." She asked how McCain could think Palin, who she described as the "new kid on the block" could dare compare to her New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who tried mightily to best Obama but came up short. Not a fan of Hillary's, Warner said she does respect her politics, experience, choices and general record. "I grimly laughed, and thought to myself....poor ole McCain, this will surely backfire on him and kill his chances for good. So much for his judgement," she said.   Warner admits that while she rarely thinks about the religious right in America, she said McCain's pick of Palin was a good choice for them but will be the worst choice for the United States. "They [America's religious right] have always frightened me," she said.

But speaking to the point of why her French friends are rooting for Obama, Warner ticked off the following reasons for her fervent hope that American voters not duplicate their two previous fumbles at making the right choice to lead the world to more peace and less war.Obama , she said, would clean up Bush's international mess, restoring the formidable reputation the US once enjoyed. And by electing a leader of color, she believes it would be enormous in the eyes of the French who cried for America after 9-11 but who now mourn for it. She said it would be proof the "US could face up to its 'multiple cultured heritage."
A former student at Columbia University, where she studied political science, Warner said Obama would negotiate with other world leaders rather than just move on them, i.e, the Bush Doctrine, by ignoring any other sovereign national borders.

She thinks Obama's international upbringing and experience, which she thinks enables him to judge things with more of a world's eye view than McCain, who was reared in an all military family and seems to believe that might makes right, even if that means forcing or intimidating allies to hold their tongue no matter how wrong the US leader is. "The world is made up of several communities that are simply 'other', neither good or bad....just another way of considering things." As the mother of one son, Warner, whose overseas career includes being a photographer's stylist, fashion journalist, costume designerTV producer and author of a book on the handicapped, says Obamas real care for his two small daughters shows more respect for them than Palin , who seems more than willing to use her children as props. Exposing her handicapped infant to lights and hoopla, according to Warner, is pure pandering for votes. Living in a country rated tops among countries for its health care system and where education doesn't bust a family's budget, Warner saysObama's stances on education and health care are far superior to his opponent, Mr. McCain. She believes Obama's "simple decency" is very apparent, leading her to believe that he can play hard ball and play it straight, free of the "lies, insinuations and double talk" coming from the McCain camp.

But like many Americans, living in the States and overseas, Warner said the war in Iraq is a top issue for those who want the US to withdraw its troops and come home. Her attitude in the States would be characterized as "cut and run" or "leaving without victory," but she sees it differently. "We lost. We cannot win, over there, and it was mad to even think we could, or should." Her outrage at how the Bush administration has treated the very soldiers they trumpet for fighting for bad judgment calls is visceral. "They [soldiers] deserve more than being discharged after missing vital parts of their bodies, or with shrapnel in-crusted inside them," she said.

"What does the average American know about domestic problems in France?" she asks. She answers her own question with the word "nothing." But the French, she says, are "ladled up daily the state of the race [for president] from poll results to the the latest "insults" that have been splashed back and forth on both sides of the fence. Tired and even bored by the two years already consumed in the race to the White House, Warner said which ever candidate wins will be confronted with cleaning up President Bush's mistakes, winding down the war in Iraq, one way or another, then tackling nothing less than a few dozen problems.

Warner also has a few words of rebuke for the media, who she says has not lived up to its reputation as being fair or balanced. Her thoughts of how the treasure the US has spent on the war in Iraq could have been used for laudable issues like energy research, education or health care are not dissimilar to what many Americans feel could have and should have been done with these funds. "The US would be in a far more healthy position than it is in now," she deduced. Shelambasts American political campaigns for wasting money on TV attack ads that may be irrelevant in less than a week. "If the people want politics, let them join a party and participate, not be spoon fed some day laborer adman's venom."   Still a registered votere from Massachusetts, Warner casts her vote by absentee ballot, as does her son. As a member of Democrats Aboard, the overseas branch of the Democratic Party she says includes many members like bankers, stock brokers and corporate lawyers who would demographically be cast as Republicans in the States, among other professions, Warner opines that the reasons for such a "switch" may simply be that as long-term residents of a Social Democracy like France, they realize the value of  concerted public solidarity. "I don't know why, but I have never even met a Republican amongst expatiates here, and I am not 'locked into an underprivileged situation,' my friends are professors, some of the above mentioned people even, and assorted artists, writers and all that ilk whom you would expect to be Democrats," she said, adding, "Strange."

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