Oh dear, now who’s being the cynical one, eh?

One of the messages that keeps coming out of the “anti-American Islamic countries” — if I can be forgiven for reinforcing the meme that there’s some great global anti-American conspiracy — is that it’s all about America’s actions. America’s a fantastic concept, just read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But modern America ignores the concept and behaves like a bully internationally.

As Peter Cook wrote in Consequences:

They’re very fine words, Mr Stapleton, but that’s all they are. Words! What we need are actions. Actions speak louder than I do.

I think I’m with the Platypus. America may get a few points with a POTUS of Color, but they’ll have to change their actions before anyone respects them. And the institutions which drive America’s actions internationally have deep roots.

You’re right, the Australian election didn’t have an international component. I should know that after the tens of thousands of words I’ve read on the subject!

I had a couple more rambling paragraphs, but I do like concise bullet points so I will attempt to do that instead:

#1 “Re-branding” America has more to do with their corporate institutions, the political institutions that support them and changing the way they work. Regardless of president, they have generally chugged along in a similar fashion in the last half century or so, hence why I said figurehead.

#2 From my limited observations of Obama, reading up on the candidates’ policies on the interweb and observing American friend intelligibly squabble about the issues, I think he and fellow Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton are similar in viewpoints and they will end up working in similar ways when in power. Obama is superficially more attractive to people who want a significant change, because he lacks the strong institutional links of Clinton and he does rhetoric well, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest that his actions will back up the rhetoric (I suppose I should point out that I am intrinsically suspicious of rhetoric). I don’t think he will be the great reformer many want him to be.

#3 I would probably like to be proven wrong.

#4 In Andrew Sullivan’s article, there was a line about the Pakistani boy seeing Obama and saying that Obama’s appearance would be useful in the US’ fight against radical Islamism (and part of the re-branding according to Taplin’s article). While humans are visual creatures, I think people’s issues with the US’ branding is more cultural than racial and that seeing a non-white president is unlikely to make much of a difference (especially with the baggage involved!). I think that’s a better summation of my point regarding Obama’s appearance.

[Stilgherrian says: I've even link to the Sullivan article for you, I'm that considerate. Yes, I sometimes edit comments -- but only to fix obvious spelling and typographical mistakes or provide links.]

Cy-ni-cal!

I think the success of Kevin Rudd was due to the fact #1 people got over Howard and #2 Workchoices. The seats that swung hardest to the ALP tended to be the battler type ones (outer suburban/rural). Australia doesn’t have much of a presence in the international political scene and I doubt most Australians particularly care about that either.