WARM TRIBUTE

Posted at 9:54 a.m. ET

As we've reported, there's a flood of pompous pieces coming from the international press this morning, as our European betters tap us politely on the head, saying, "You Yanks are growing up, just like us." 

Leave it to a good, solid Aussie writer like Greg Sheridan to have the thoughtfulness to pay a deserved tribute to this country, in the wake of Obama's election.

SO now we know for sure. The Noam Chomsky-John Pilger-Phillip Adams view of America is wrong. In George W. Bush's America, a land allegedly rife with militarism and racism, the white military hero lost and the black memoirist won a slashing election victory.

Well said.  But never underestimate the financial lure of anti-Americanism.  Those three unworthies will be back at the same old stand.

It is indeed a wonderful thing for the US to have its first black president. No African-American child need ever fear there is any limit to what they can achieve. Whatever you think of Obama's policies and capacity to govern well -- and I have my doubts -- his election is a powerful symbol of America's inclusiveness and opportunity. Which other big, rich, predominantly white society has elected a member of a racial minority to be its head of government? Not Australia.

So as we salute Obama, let's salute America as well.

The left liberal caricature of America was always nonsense. The militarism of American society is vastly overstated, just as its profound willingness to make sacrifice for other people's freedom is under-appreciated.

And...

Similarly on race, the dynamic has been the opposite of the left liberal caricature of America for a long time. As Shelby Steele has argued, America has been ready for years to elect a black president. Of all the exit polls CNN conducted, perhaps the most revealing was the one that found only 20 per cent of Americans believed race was an important factor in how they voted. And a clear majority of those people voted for Obama.

But Obama's win must be put into perspective:

John McCain surely did just about as well as any Republican could have. He certainly made mistakes. But at the time of writing the popular vote was about 52 per cent to 47 per cent. That means Obama got about 1per cent more than Bush did four years ago. This was no landslide comparable to Ronald Reagan's victory of 1980, Richard Nixon's in 1972 or Lyndon Johnson's in 1964.

He is correct, but look at some of the hysterical reporting.  You'd think George Washington was elected.

Obama cannot govern by dint of his exotic identity or smooth talking. But these features will afford one advantage. At least temporarily, and perhaps for quite some time, the routine, stupid and dully uninformed anti-Americanism of many opinion makers around the world will be untenable. But all that will be less important than how Obama decides to govern. History here has plenty of cautionary lessons. The US political system works around checks and balances. History tells us that when one party controls the presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives, it is often pretty ugly. There is overwhelming evidence that unified government in Washington spends and taxes more than a divided government, and that will be a temptation for Obama and congressional leaders.

Correct again.

But at this stage we have no idea of how Obama will govern. The first real sign will come when he appoints his cabinet. Then perhaps we can answer the question this long campaign has so far not addressed: politically, who is Barack Obama?

Ah, the question of the era.

November 5, 2008.