Guy's Good

You. Barack Obama. You're very good, you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAhb06Z8N1c&e

The latest figures I saw say two-hundred thousand people turned out to see Obama speak in Berlin today. Well over a million Germans tuned in to watch it on television.

That settles it. Our European Union counterparts follow American politics better than our own citizens.

The sheer fact that Obama drew such a positive response from the German people tells me they're even more desperate for a change in American leadership than we are at home. Why wouldn't they be? The policy decisions of the Bush Administration have had just as much of an impact on them as they have anyone else in the world. Through the seventies, eighties and nineties, the United States worked its way up to be the pillar of the world economy, so now that we're in the process of quietly imploding, we stand to take a good chunk of the world with us.

Come election day, there are going to be just as many disillusioned Europeans perched in front of the TV, hoping, albeit against their better jaded judgement, that a majority of Americans have had their goddamn eyes opened. The economic and foreign policy judgements made over the past year have placed us all equally in the recession crapper.

Europe has been so affected by this country, one questions whether it might actually be fair just to dole out one electoral vote a piece to each member nation of the EU.

So George Bush goes to Berlin and makes Chancellor Angela Merkel increasingly uncomfortable each time. John McCain goes to Ohio and orders the schnitzel. Barack Obama makes the trip, gives an eloquent speech and fosters international goodwill toward America before he's even the party's official nominee.

If there's a reason for Americans NOT to vote for Barack Obama, that's it. He said it oh-so-articulately himself during today's speech.

"In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe in our security and our future."

And you'd better believe those voices are terrified of black people, loathe an inspired leader who can speak a coherent sentence and don't think they have any use for health care... that is, until a lifetime of avoiding the doctor's office catches up to them and they're wards of the state.

God. Damnit. I know things look pretty good in this race, but I will NEVER, EVER underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers again.

The morning after that fateful election day in 2004, the cover of The Mirror, a paper in the UK, showed a picture of G W Bush making one of his infamous dumb monkey faces. The headline read, "How Could 59,054,087 Americans be so dumb?"

I only hope that this year, in 2008, we can prove there were plenty of Americans shaking their heads and asking themselves the same damn question.