Obama Makes It Cool To Be American Again

... at least that seems to now be the sentiment of liberals who formerly bitched about America. You know the type, the whiny, elitist snob who sniffs at America being inferior to Europe and everything about America is gauche. We're the embarrassing, backwoods, knuckle-dragging cousin to Europe. Such elitists always scorned those Americans who love their country and aren't ashamed to say so. They chastized such barbaric thinking as being jingoistic, claiming that patriotism was just a step away from nationalism.

I have always found it curious that self-loathing Libs always seem to overlook that everyone on the planet is proud of their country. I have seen Mexicans get teary-eyed at the lowering of their nation's flag each evening on the Zócalo in Mexico City. Our British cousins are damned proud of being British -- and well they should be! The French are quite "in your face" about being French ... etc., etc., etc.

But, now that the sun has risen once again on America's horizon, bathing us all in the light of Hope and Change, Obamessiah is also increasing our street cred around the globe. Associated Press writers William J. Kole and Matt Moore, reporting from Berlin, write that the world hopes for a less arrogant America. They write that with the end of the Bush Administration, the world is gearing up to celebrate America's fresh, new start. Many around the globe partied as they watched the election. In their report, "World Hopes For A 'Less Arrogant America'", Kole and Moore write:

In Germany, where more than 200,000 flocked to see Obama this summer as he moved to burnish his foreign policy credentials during a trip to the Middle East and Europe, the election dominated television ticker crawls, newspaper headlines and Web sites.

Hundreds of thousands prepared to party through the night to watch the outcome of an election having an impact far beyond America's shores. Among the more irreverent festivities planned in Paris: a "Goodbye George" party to bid farewell to Bush.

Muslim nations were definitely pulling for Obama to win, having felt deeply offended by the imprisonment of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and the fall out from the Abu Ghraib prison photos.

"I hope Obama wins (because) of the need of the world to see the U.S. represent a more cosmopolitan or universal political attitude," said Rais Yatim, the foreign minister of mostly Muslim Malaysia.

"The new president will have an impact on the economic and political situation in my country," said Muhammad al-Thaheri, 48, a civil servant in Saudi Arabia. Like so many around the world, he was rooting for Obama "because he will change the path the U.S. is on under Bush."

Nizar al-Kortas, a columnist for Kuwait's Al-Anbaa newspaper, saw an Obama victory as "a historic step to change the image of the arrogant American administration to one that is more acceptable in the world."

Interestingly, the same writer, Kole and Moore, also penned another article along similar lines: "Suddenly, It May Be Cool to Be An American Again." The day following Obama's election, he (they?) wrote of a young woman in Vienna, Austria who, when overhearing his English conversation on his cellphone, walked over and kissed him on the cheek. Her kiss was if to say "Today, we are all American."

For longtime U.S. expatriates like me — someone far more accustomed to being targeted over unpopular policies, for having my very Americanness publicly assailed — it feels like an extraordinary turnabout.

Like a long journey over a very bumpy road has abruptly come to an end.

And it's not just me.

An American colleague in Egypt says several people came up to her on the streets of Cairo and said: "America, hooray!" Others, including strangers, expressed congratulations with a smile and a hand over their hearts.

Another colleague, in Amman, says Jordanians stopped her on the street and that several women described how they wept with joy.

When you're an American abroad, you can quickly become a whipping post. Regardless of your political affiliation, if you happen to be living and working overseas at a time when the United States has antagonized much of the world, you get a lot of grief.

You can find yourself pressed to be some kind of apologist for Washington. And you can wind up feeling ashamed and alone.

(Gee, that's how I feel sometimes among my colleagues -- an apologist for America!)

The authors continue with some stories of living in Europe and, at times, faced with some anti-American hostility. Although they state that attacks on Americans are rare, they do write of occasionally having denied being American and claiming some other nationality to avoid confrontation.

However, the author(s) does not place too much weight on the kiss from the young woman. He did not feel it was particularly pro-Obama, but rather that it was of two sentiments: friendship and admiration.

Obama captured it in his acceptance speech — this sense that despite holding America's feet to the fire, the rest of the world is rooting for it and wants it to lead and succeed.

"Our destiny is shared," he said, "and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand."

Overnight, Americans did something their harshest critics in Europe have yet to do: elect a person of color as head of state and commander in chief. That gives U.S. citizens some bragging rights, even if a lot of us would just as soon eschew hubris and embrace humility.

Well, now that Obama has not only saved America and now taking aim at saving the rest of Western Civilization (the remainder of the world will be his target for his second term), it's good to know that Obama's got my back the next time I travel abroad. Hopefully by then he will have totally turned around the global slump in the economy.

But, wait! Should I then feel guilty when the dollar increases in value, perhaps once again surpassing the Euro? I'm sure my Lib friends will tell me so. Because, you know, it's wrong to be wealthy, too.

(But, that's for another posting on another day.)