John McCain or Barack Obama.  Whose better for America?  For Europe?  For the common interests of both? 

The chance for a realignment of U.S. and EU interests is in the offing.  France, Germany, Italy and possible Britian have, to some degree, realized their previous excesses.  Hopefully, we have recognized our own, particularly the idea that "Old Europe" is irrelevant.  It is not, as John McCain's proposal for a league of democracies organized to confront common problems in the third world makes clear.  However, should a left-leaning Barack Obama ascend to the Presidency, the Yin/Yang relationship between the U.S. and Europe may swing the other way, pushing Western Europe in the "right" direction.  The "new" Europe could become more like the U.S., just as the U.S. becomes more like "Old Europe".  What would be the consequences?  Russia will continue to follow her own course, looking East in hopes of reviving a Eurasian identity, while her influence to the West remains unchecked.  Turkey, that most unfairly maligned of nations who would be European, could default to Muslim Middle East mode if the US/EU is not more careful.  Turkish influence in the new Central Asian republics is invaluable.  If we do not wish to avail ourselves of that influence, the Russians surely will.  Finally, to the South, the future of the Middle East may hang in the balance, not in ancient Jerusalem but in modern Baghdad.  The turnaround in Iraq may have Europeans worried that failure by the U.S. at this point could be attributed to willful negligence on their part, with unforeseen consequences for both.  The same holds for Afghanistan, where the joint American/NATO venture remains a microcosm of our differences .

The American leader Europeans love to hate will soon be gone, possibly replaced by one they would normally adore.   His foreign and domestic policies, mimick their own, but could turn out to be a failure when transplanted to America.  In that case, Europeans now realize, we all lose.  For both Europe and the United States, changes are coming, regardless of who becomes president.  And change necessarily comes with a caveat:  be careful what you wish for.  Seized by a contagion of wishful thinking, millions of Americans and Europeans have become enchanted by our newest political star, Barack Obama, and are marching to his tune toward our common future, as if he's the Pied Piper.  But, he's more Pinocchio than the Pied Piper, a puppet who's come to life and escaped the controlling hands of that most traditional of American values, skepticism of charlatans proffering snake oil cure-alls.  Unfortunately, our world is not some Disneyland fairy tale.  More than anyone else, John McCain with his politician's smile barely hiding the scars, knows this to be true.  In the modern history of western democracies, rarely has there been such a dichotomy in the choice for leadership.  And the choice is ours.   John McCain or Barack Obama. 





Want to change the world?  Just, sing along then to the theme song to Disney's Pinocchio:
  
"When you wish upon a star",
 
"No matter who you are", 
  
"All your dreams will come true".
 

Then again, maybe they won't.  As the Buddhists would say, may you live in interesting times.  And, so we do.