The view from abroad
I stayed up late last night waiting for some whiff of exit polls or results but went to bed disappointed.
My clock radio woke me up this morning with Obama's acceptance speech so I knew it would be A Good Day.
This is my third Presidential election seen from afar and it has been astounding, amazing and moving in ways I would never have expected.
Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Kerry in 2004, all drew mild curiosity from those jaded Yurpeans. This time it was different.
There was live coverage last night on French TV and Swiss TV, kind of odd when since they had absolutely no results to discuss until the wee hours of the morning here. But the images they ran of ecstatic voters reduced me to tears. Mailing an absentee ballot just doesn't have the emotion resonance of going down to the local precinct and pulling the metaphorical lever.
This morning French and Swiss TV was all about Obama.
Some of coverage was cynical (some lefty French socialist speculating that Obama would be a protectionist) but most of the coverage was astonishment that American Democracy was as good as its word that anyone could grow up to be President.
Here's a sampling from a correspondent of the lo cal paper:
Les huit ans du règne immonde de Deubeulyou Bush sont donc achevés. Et pour la première fois, un fils de l’Afrique va présider la puissance numéro un de la planète. Etonnante Amérique. On la savait capable du pire - Abou Ghraib, Guantánamo, la torture officialisée, le Patriot Act. Barack Obama nous rappelle qu’elle l’est aussi du meilleur. Alors, laissons éclater notre joie devant cette victoire historique d’un métis démocrate sur une vieille culotte de peau républicaine flanquée d’une Calamity Palin qui vient du froid et qui ferait bien d’y retourner pour ne plus le quitter.
The President of Switzerland, Michelline Calmy-Rey, proclaimed:
En élisant un président noir et un vice-président catholique, «l'Amérique a montré qu'elle était capable d'ouvrir de nouvelles frontières», a déclaré le président de la Confédération sur les ondes.
Not to be picky, but we got over the whole Catholic thing with JFK but that's Old Europe for you.
There will be disappointment, both in the USA and abroad. The expectations for Obama are impossibly high (put yourself in Obama's shoes, think how daunting that would be).
But I can't escape feeling that the US has turned some kind of corner yesterday. We won't have a President that publically scoffs at outrages on human dignity. Maybe we have a President that will do something about the various gathering dooms of economic calamity, wars and global warming.
Today I am OK with being an American abroad.
My clock radio woke me up this morning with Obama's acceptance speech so I knew it would be A Good Day.
This is my third Presidential election seen from afar and it has been astounding, amazing and moving in ways I would never have expected.
Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Kerry in 2004, all drew mild curiosity from those jaded Yurpeans. This time it was different.
There was live coverage last night on French TV and Swiss TV, kind of odd when since they had absolutely no results to discuss until the wee hours of the morning here. But the images they ran of ecstatic voters reduced me to tears. Mailing an absentee ballot just doesn't have the emotion resonance of going down to the local precinct and pulling the metaphorical lever.
This morning French and Swiss TV was all about Obama.
Some of coverage was cynical (some lefty French socialist speculating that Obama would be a protectionist) but most of the coverage was astonishment that American Democracy was as good as its word that anyone could grow up to be President.
Here's a sampling from a correspondent of the lo cal paper:
Les huit ans du règne immonde de Deubeulyou Bush sont donc achevés. Et pour la première fois, un fils de l’Afrique va présider la puissance numéro un de la planète. Etonnante Amérique. On la savait capable du pire - Abou Ghraib, Guantánamo, la torture officialisée, le Patriot Act. Barack Obama nous rappelle qu’elle l’est aussi du meilleur. Alors, laissons éclater notre joie devant cette victoire historique d’un métis démocrate sur une vieille culotte de peau républicaine flanquée d’une Calamity Palin qui vient du froid et qui ferait bien d’y retourner pour ne plus le quitter.
The President of Switzerland, Michelline Calmy-Rey, proclaimed:
En élisant un président noir et un vice-président catholique, «l'Amérique a montré qu'elle était capable d'ouvrir de nouvelles frontières», a déclaré le président de la Confédération sur les ondes.
Not to be picky, but we got over the whole Catholic thing with JFK but that's Old Europe for you.
There will be disappointment, both in the USA and abroad. The expectations for Obama are impossibly high (put yourself in Obama's shoes, think how daunting that would be).
But I can't escape feeling that the US has turned some kind of corner yesterday. We won't have a President that publically scoffs at outrages on human dignity. Maybe we have a President that will do something about the various gathering dooms of economic calamity, wars and global warming.
Today I am OK with being an American abroad.