INSANITY

Posted at 6:58 p.m. ET

We are assured by the parishioners in the mainstream media that all the world wants Obama.  They yearn, they pray, they wish for The One. 

Well, not everyone.  There are actually some voices in other countries that think the whole Obama thing is...pick your own negative adjective.  And I suspect there are more than a few foreign leaders and diplomats who wonder what kind of leadership the free world will get from a guy whose career still needs training wheels. 

Gerald Warner in London's Telegraph, carries the banner for the Obamaskeptics.  He is brave for writing this, for it probably means fewer party invitations to better homes with solar power:

"We owe the rest of the world an apology for the last eight years. We can start to make it up by electing Barack Obama." Those words, spoken to a Daily Telegraph reporter by a lawyer interviewed in Tampa, Florida, chillingly illustrate the strain of masochistic insanity that seems to have gripped part of the American electorate.

Good, good.  Don't you like it already?

So, now we know what this election is really about. It is not about helping the Joes - Six-Pack or the Plumber - in Peoria. It is about appeasing the Fritzes in Düsseldorf, the Ivans in Moscow and the Wus in Beijing.

But to the better people, that's just so important.  One wants to travel with ease, after all.

Why the h*** should America apologise to the rest of the world? And why - above all - should it express its unwarranted contrition by handing supreme power to the one man most guaranteed to dismantle that country's greatness and make it a soft touch in global affairs?

As I've said before in this space, some British reporters have a better sense of reality about American politics than do American journalists.

Why should the United States apologise? Is Russia apologising for invading Georgia? Is China apologising for its brutal occupation of Tibet? Is militant Islam grovelling to the West for its atrocities? So, if the most powerful democratic nation on earth turns into a guilt-ridden collective pantywaist, what will that mean for the rest of us? Real and present danger, is the answer. The conduct and standing of the United States affects all of us, around the world, and entitles us to make an earnest plea to the American electorate.

And what is that plea?

Walk tall, America, and proclaim your ideals by electing a president who embodies them.

I wish, I wish, I wish.

October 21, 2008.