One Day, the World Will Hate Him

Should he win the White House, the rest of the world will one day see Barack Obama as a villain, David Aaronovitch writes in the London Times. The spectacle of empire and popularity drives the country's allies to both anger and envy, he argues, and every American president has come to be depicted “as a cowboy astride a phallic missile.”

The US is forever the draw for ”the most ambitious of the world’s migrants," Aaronovitch contends. Although Europe haughtily equates “change” with “decline,” it is actually endlessly jealous. Obama will learn that two-pronged anti-Americanism is inevitable and can’t be cured by replacing President Bush’s “flat iteration” with “emotional literacy.” (More Barack Obama stories.)