Coverage of President Barack Obama’s inauguration in the British and German press shared many of the “new dawn for America” sentiments featured in the U.S. media. Equally, a number of European reports warned that while Obama starts with a huge well of goodwill, his “magic” will not last for ever. Broadly speaking, the European left engaged in more breathless swooning over Obama than the right, which tended to be more skeptical.
Many in the German media, as evidenced in these extracts compiled in English by Spiegel Online International, used the occasion for one more round of Bush-bashing. The center-left Suddeutsche Zeitung wrote of Obama: “Someone who inspires so much admiration and loyalty makes things difficult for America’s enemies. The image of the US as bogey man, passionately stoked by many and brutally exploited by terrorists, will not work so easily anymore.”
“America’s weaknesses were not only George W. Bush and his clique, but rather the intellectual position that spread throughout the country: an imperialist megalomania, a power trip, that didn’t leave room for friends. It led the country to lose its attraction for the first time. Obama’s greatest achievement was that he has reactivated this magnetism. Suddenly people across the world are looking benevolently at America, at this positive and dynamic society that allows so much freedom.”
The conservative Die Welt said Europeans were more likely than Americans to hold it against Obama if he turns out not to be a true miracle healer. “The disappointment will in all likelihood be felt abroad, particularly in Europe. That is because Barack Obama will quickly make it clear that he is above all the president of the United States and will represent that country’s interests in a way that may be thoroughly uncomfortable for Europe.”
Center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented that the “sobriety” of Obama’s speech “is certainly aimed at dampening the messianic hopes that have been raised by his inauguration. They also mark a break from the ideological polarization that defined much of the Bush presidency.”
The left wing Berliner Zeitung described Obama as embodying “the noble side of the American idea — in contrast to those who governed until Tuesday,” adding that, “Seldom has an inauguration speech been such an unforgiving reckoning with a previous administration.”
“Obama’s speech recalled that of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, when he spoke about the truth about the economic crisis, about challenges and wars. It is this ability to speak to both history and to his audience of the day that Obama has mastered like no other politician. It was a skill that played no small part in bringing him to the White House. However, the inspiration that comes from his own historic mission will not last forever.”
British newspapers reflected many of the same themes as the German media, but were more inclined to dwell on America’s racial history. The Guardian’s main report “Obama inauguration: Let the remaking of American begin today‘ described the crowd as “quite possibly the largest mass of humanity ever to have gathered in one place for a single political moment,” and detected four “ghosts” at the ceremony: Lincoln’s Gettysburg address provided the theme of Obama’s speech , the “new birth of freedom” , and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and Obama’s inaugural address “were in some ways bookends to the darkest stain on America’s history.” For many in the crowd this was the over-riding reason for the pilgrimage to Washington.
Nobody there could have been oblivious to the echo of the “I have a dream” speech, delivered at the other end of the Mall by the second ghost, Martin Luther King, 45 years previously. “And then there were JFK and FDR. Obama’s call for responsibility and sacrifice recalled both Kennedy in 1961 and Roosevelt’s heartfelt cry in 1933: “We now realize as we have never realized before our ¬interdependence on each other.'”
Coverage in the Financial Times was largely adulatory, stressing the “decisive break” that Obama had made with the Bush administration. Like most reporting in the European media, the FT missed the extraordinary amount of conservative philosophy embedded in the speech , ranging from Obama’s endorsement of traditional right-wing values such as hard work and patriotism to his appeal to Americans to remain “faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents,” a sentiment much more popular on the right than on the left. (The FT described the size of the crowd in the Mall as “biblical,” without explaining which event in the Bible gathered 2 million people in one place.)
In an editorial, the FT called Obama a born leader. “There is no bombast or chauvinism or phony sentiment in Mr. Obama’s oratory. He inspires, yet his appeal is always to the intellect; still he holds an audience of this size spellbound. It was the performance of a born leader.”
It concluded: “Mr. Obama starts with the great goodwill of his country and all the civilized world. He again made clear that he seeks co-operation with other nations. He understands the international dimension of many of the problems he must confront. In many ways his inauguration is a new start not just for the United States but for the world. America’s friends must also seize the moment.”
A commentary in the more conservative London Times, “Realistic if not soaring,’ was less ecstatic about Obama’s oratory: “There were few truly memorable pieces of phraseology , no Kennedyesque, or Rooseveltian quotations for the ages. He labored hard to echo the tone and cadence of his biggest campaign performances. And there was more than a hint of a self-conscious echo , distractingly , of the speeches of his hero and fellow Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln.
The language in particular sounded decidedly 19th century in parts . . . But it wasn’t up to Lincoln’s standards , which perhaps is asking too much. In fact, it may not have been really memorable at all . . . In fairness it was a speech more obviously measured to the practical immensity of the immediate challenges.”
Mary Dejevsky of the British daily the Independent saw the event as a sort of cleansing for America, suggesting that “if there is one video-clip that could change expectations everywhere, it is that of Mr. Obama swearing the oath of office beneath the Stars and Stripes.” (She omitted to mention that Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts fumbled the wording of the oath , to the extent that it had to re-taken at a small White House ceremony the following day.)
Unfortunately, Dejevsky’s views of American race relations appear to be stuck somewhere in the 1960s, a perception she shares with many Europeans who are reluctant to abandon their stereotypes of a monolithic, racist “white America.” As a result, she fails to understand Obama’s election and the nature of the criticism he will encounter when he makes mistakes (hint: it will not be because he is black, but because of his policies.) Thus she writes:
“At this time of high emotion and almost infinite aspiration, however, it is also important to realize what Barack Obama’s arrival in the White House does not say about America. It does not say that all Americans are equal or even have equal opportunities. It says that one particular American had the persuasive gifts and the qualifications to compete for the highest office and prevail. It says that, in the league of white America’s concerns, economic self-interest , to put it crudely, the pocket book , trumped even so visible and deep rooted a consideration as race. Voters judged Mr. Obama the candidate best equipped to address their anxiety.”
“But this does not mean that America’s complexes about race have been overcome. You can be sure that the moment the new president puts a foot wrong, there will be those who will not hesitate to invoke race. More than a few mis-steps, and there will be mutterings about race and capacity for leadership. The stakes for Mr. Obama are high indeed. What appears now as a giant step forward for equality and racial harmony in America could all too quickly turn into a giant step back.”
Research contributed by Eve Copeland.
