9 Moments That Mattered
by James Fallows
The Atlantic
As an American, I care most about Barack Obama's effect within my own country. But I've watched his rise and now his assumption of power mainly from overseas, so let me do the impossible and attempt to say how "the world" views his start in office.
From the perspective of most outsiders, Obama is of course a success, simply because he is not the reviled George W. Bush. (I say this even though my current home, China, is one of three or four places where most people would have been happy to bring Bush back for a third term. Others: Albania, plus probably Poland and Israel.) And he is of course a failure, simply because he is not the Messiah-like FDR/Lincoln hybrid that many Europeans and others had begun to envision by Election Day. And of course, no one knows how Americans or anyone else will feel about him two years from now -- or four, or eight. We love the "100 Days" marker, but things that prove to matter about a presidency usually don't show up this soon.
Still, as I've checked news sites and watched TV reports from around the world, I've been struck by the cumulating success of the Obama launch. Here are the moments that I think have mattered outside the United States even more than they did inside. The list starts with the one I consider most important and works down, but you could put them in pretty much any order you want. The point about them collectively is the emerging message they send about the way this president views America's place in the world.
1. April 5 (or, in 100 Days mode, Day 76 of the Obama presidency, counting January 20 as Day 1.) Obama's speech in Prague about eliminating nuclear weapons (official text here). From an international perspective, this speech was a counterpart to Obama's post-Rev. Wright, campaign-saving address on race relations, in Philadelphia, a little more than a year ago. That is, it addressed a question of first-order seriousness - in this case, what is to become of the tens of thousands of nuclear warheads still around - and handled it with both clarity and complexity. He also showed that it was possible to talk seriously about terrorist threats without fear-mongering. This line was noted around the world (friends in Japan sent me messages about it within minutes): "As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act." Obama said that without guilt, apology, or suggestion that Harry Truman's decision to bomb Japan had been wrong, but nonetheless as a historical truth to be recognized. A speech worthy of the great post-World War II American statesmen.
(Continued here.)
The Atlantic
As an American, I care most about Barack Obama's effect within my own country. But I've watched his rise and now his assumption of power mainly from overseas, so let me do the impossible and attempt to say how "the world" views his start in office.
From the perspective of most outsiders, Obama is of course a success, simply because he is not the reviled George W. Bush. (I say this even though my current home, China, is one of three or four places where most people would have been happy to bring Bush back for a third term. Others: Albania, plus probably Poland and Israel.) And he is of course a failure, simply because he is not the Messiah-like FDR/Lincoln hybrid that many Europeans and others had begun to envision by Election Day. And of course, no one knows how Americans or anyone else will feel about him two years from now -- or four, or eight. We love the "100 Days" marker, but things that prove to matter about a presidency usually don't show up this soon.
Still, as I've checked news sites and watched TV reports from around the world, I've been struck by the cumulating success of the Obama launch. Here are the moments that I think have mattered outside the United States even more than they did inside. The list starts with the one I consider most important and works down, but you could put them in pretty much any order you want. The point about them collectively is the emerging message they send about the way this president views America's place in the world.
1. April 5 (or, in 100 Days mode, Day 76 of the Obama presidency, counting January 20 as Day 1.) Obama's speech in Prague about eliminating nuclear weapons (official text here). From an international perspective, this speech was a counterpart to Obama's post-Rev. Wright, campaign-saving address on race relations, in Philadelphia, a little more than a year ago. That is, it addressed a question of first-order seriousness - in this case, what is to become of the tens of thousands of nuclear warheads still around - and handled it with both clarity and complexity. He also showed that it was possible to talk seriously about terrorist threats without fear-mongering. This line was noted around the world (friends in Japan sent me messages about it within minutes): "As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act." Obama said that without guilt, apology, or suggestion that Harry Truman's decision to bomb Japan had been wrong, but nonetheless as a historical truth to be recognized. A speech worthy of the great post-World War II American statesmen.
(Continued here.)
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