But He Could Be Re-Elected Anyway?

Grrr. Mr. W. told me about this at lunchtime, but did I post it then and beat ninme? No, I did not. (It's not getting scooped I mind, so much as having to come up with a different headline.) Anyway, Krauthammer gave an absolutely yummy interview to Der Spiegel. Yummy because he mocked Obama and their love of him right in their European faces.

in the American context, to be the hero of five Norwegian leftists, is not exactly politically positive.

Then:

SPIEGEL: Why do Europeans react so positively to him?

Krauthammer: Because Europe, for very understandable reasons, has been chaffing for 60 years under the protection, but also the subtle or not so subtle domination of America. Europeans like to see the big guy cut down to size, it's a natural reaction. You know, Europe ran the world for 400 or 500 years until the civilizational suicide of the two World Wars. And then America emerged as the world hegemon, with no competition and unchallenged. The irony is America is the only hegemonic power that never sought hegemony, unlike, for example, Napoleonic France. Americans are not intrinsically imperial, but we ended up dominant by default: Europe disappeared after the Second World War, the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, so here we are. Of course Europeans like to see the hegemon diminished, and Obama is the perfect man to do that.

Speaking of which (that last bit), folks in Mr. W's office are convinced the decline of the dollar is part of Obama's overall strategy. His entire purpose in life is to have America "taken down a peg," including by having the dollar mean nothing much.

But anyway, read the interview. It's going to leave a mark.