There is no question that Barack Obama would carry Europe if they got to vote. From what I can tell, Justice Anthony Kennedy would probably give them the vote. I don't think we can hold Senator Obama entirely responsible for Europe, but it is worthy of some thought. What is Europe, that it is so fond of the Hyde Park Messiah?
The answer is that Europe is nothing. It does not exist. The "European Community" was created in 1993 in the not-so-vague hope that it would allow Europe united to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States. It has not been without achievements. They did create a common currency, and a "single market", more or less. But they have failed to get a European constitution, a fact I blogged about back in 2005.
Now we see that Europe is equally incompetent in the face of the current financial crisis. From Yahoo News
LONDON - Individual European governments issued a cascade of deposit guarantees to shore up their banks but fell short of any coordinated action Monday to deal with the crisis sweeping financial markets, even as stock markets crashed and the euro sank to its lowest level for over a year. Though Europe's officials appeared to be paying lip service to the need for working together, they continued to make key announcements on deposits on a go-it-alone basis.
Germany's Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck made clear his government's opposition to the idea that the euro zone's single largest economy should put up money to prop up institutions outside his country.
He said Monday that he and Chancellor Angela Merkel were considering creating a "shield" that would protect the country's entire financial sector, and that a Europe-wide shield or bailout was out of the question. "The chancellor and I reject a European shield because we as Germans do not want to pay into a big pot where we do not have control and do not know where German money might be used," he said in a separate interview with WDR 2 radio.
Well, union sounds like a good idea, but when a real crisis comes along it's every duchy and bishopric for itself.
And it isn't just the financial crisis that's causing them to fall apart; it's global warming as well. Somebody call Al Gore! From the London Economist:
JUST 18 months ago the European Union promised to save the world from climate change. A final plan to deliver on those promises must be finished soon. But it is in deep trouble.
The conclusions of the March 2007 summit proclaiming the EU's "leading role" on climate change make for wistful reading today. They begin "Europe is currently enjoying an economic upswing," and add that growth forecasts are "positive". Back in that long-lost golden age, the EU's leaders were in heroic mood. They offered binding promises known as the 20/20/20 pledges. By the year 2020, they would cut Europe's carbon emissions by at least a fifth over 1990 levels; derive 20% of all energy from renewable sources; and make energy-efficiency savings of 20%.
The heroic mood is gone now. In March 2007 Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and chairman of the summit, was a green champion. Today she sounds like a lobbyist for German business, listing the industries that must be shielded from the full costs of her package. In truth, almost every country has found reasons why the climate-change promises may be impossible to meet in their current form. Britain is gloomy about its renewable-energy targets. Ireland says its farmers must be protected (grass-fed Irish cows emit a lot of methane).
Europe is a land of pious pronouncements. They're fond of saying all sorts of things which they themselves know to be untrue. They loved Bill Clinton because he had a good ear for what they wanted to hear, and was always willing to say it. It didn't matter that he was frequently lying to them, and that they knew he was lying, and that he knew that they knew he was lying. They hated George W. Bush because he had the bad grace to say things that were true but unpleasant, as when he said that the Kyoto treaty on global warming would never come into force. Bush was quite right of course, but it was so dreadfully gauche of him to say it.
European pretentions to unity and environmental salvation are as ephemeral as Obama's speech Tiergarten Park in Berlin. No wonder they love him.
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