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The Times - Hysteria alert: Barack Obama starts world tour
The Illinois senator is no messiah but his appearance in Europe will inspire those disenchanted with America, by Gerard Baker

But there is something else in the enthusiasm for the Illinois senator that should not be lightly disdained by Americans, even those of a conservative mind.

As even his opponent, John McCain, graciously put it this week, it suggests there is still something about America that can inspire the rest of the world. I’ve never really bought the argument that the hostility of the past eight years was simply anti-Bush, rather than, anti-American sentiment. And I still don’t believe it. What people dislike about President Bush is what they think they know about America - its ignorance, its arrogance, its narrow-mindedness - all caricatures duly fed by the media coverage of the country and its culture and its politics. But there was, it’s true, always the other side to the ambivalence of the world’s thoughts about America. The rise of Senator Obama is a reminder of what the rest of the world still admires - sometimes very grudgingly - about America: a constant capacity to renew itself.

And when you think about it, if, as seems quite likely, America under the next president is going to proceed in a direction that is not markedly different from what it has done in the past few years, is it really such a bad thing if the world actually quite likes the man leading it?

I’m thinking Gerry’s thinking it’s a done deal, then.