Stay sober, Obama - US skeptical about Europe's Obamamania

Washington - In the cartoon, Barack Obama disembarks from an airplane, waving to a scene of frenzied well-wishers with balloons, band instruments and a sign that says: 'Greetings, Mr Prospect-of- no-more-Bush.'

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (R) talks with Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (L) during their meeting in Jerusalem, 23 July 2008. US presidential candidate Barack Obama said Jerusalem should not be 'sliced up', making a 30-hour visit to Israel during which he voiced strong support for the Jewish state, but also took pains to travel to the West Bank. EPA/TARA TODRAS-WHITEHILL / POOLLingering behind the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate is an aide giving a word of advice: 'Don't let Europe's excessively warm welcome go to your head.' The cartoon published in the US daily newspaper Detroit Free Press hit the nail on the head in echoing how many Americans view Europe's passionate enthusiasm for the black senator. A Washington Post columnist projected cheering masses and even a 'few fainting Frauleins' when Obama arrives in Berlin on Thursday. But New York Times columnist Roger Cohen warned: 'Sobriety, Herr Obama.' The political classes of the United States have not missed the point that if it were up to the Europeans, they would vote overwhelmingly on November 4 for the senator from Illinois. After eight years of suffering the tarnished image of the Bush years, many Americans are relieved to see a top US politician received with such open arms and warmth on the other side of the Atlantic. But there is an underlying tone of skepticism about such affection, however much Americans have longed for a return to intimacy with Europe. 'I just hope he realizes that his rousing welcome will have less to do with him and more to do with the fact that after nearly eight years of Bush, Europeans are almost as hungry for change in the White House as Americans are,' wrote another columnist in the Detroit Free Press. The public back-and-forth in Germany about where Obama was to speak in Berlin, and above all, the idea that he should speak at the Brandenburg Gate provoked astonishment among US commentators and delivered grist to the mills of conservatives. 'What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn,' conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post. 'What exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop?' The columnist couldn't find anything in Obama to compare with the late president Ronald Reagan, who chose the historic location to demand the Soviet empire 'tear down this wall,' or with the late president John F Kennedy, who visited the gate on his way to his 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech. 'It's as if a German pol took a campaign trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue for a campaign speech,' Krauthammer thundered in outrage. In the end, Obama lost his bid for the Brandenburg Gate, but got almost as good with the nearby Victory Column. Cohen, writing in the Times, advised Europeans and Obama to 'keep the mania in check.' 'Location, location, location has been the Berlin issue. My advice to him is: sobriety, sobriety, sobriety,' Cohen wrote. But Europe won't be in for a free ride during Obama's political discussions in Berlin, London and Paris - nor if he is elected president. The 'animus' against the Bush administration 'may have made it easier for some of our European partners to avoid taking steps that we may want them to take and that perhaps they ought to take,' one of Obama's chief foreign policy advisors, Susan Rice, told the London Daily Telegraph this week. That sounded like a clear message that if elected, Obama will continue to push for more European support for frontline engagement in Afghanistan, as has Republican President George W Bush. In the United States, the starry-eyed view with which many have perceived the senator from Illinois has given way to a sharper, more critical image. His shifts towards the political center on a series of issues have already upset his left-wing base. The secrecy that surrounded Obama's Mideast, Iraq, Afghanistan and European journey over the past week even set the US media to shaking their heads. The 'three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name,' as one conservative put it, was criticized for audacity when he meddled massively into negotiations between Washington and Baghdad about the future status of US troops. Obama publicized the contents of his discussions with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki over the weekend, and it appeared that the candidate and the Iraqi leader dovetailed in their vision of US departure by 2010. That didn't sit well with David Gergen, former White House speech writer and CNN commentator. 'We have a long tradition in this country that we only have one president at a time,' Gergen said Monday, adding Bush is the 'commander in chief and the negotiator in chief,' not Obama.