@OCCOM BILL,
In the first place the world is not free. A very large part of it continues to suffer with primitive or restrictive economic, political and social/cultural systems: many developed or fast-developing nations have huge unresolved political issues involving the free chioices of their citizens and other ethnic and related issues that bear some similarity to the racial issues of our own that we are still working to overcome.
In the second place, the part of the world that is (mostly) free is not united. There is no acknowledged "leader of the free world". That might have been a meaningful appelation during the height of the Cold War when (mostly) democratic and developed nations were locked in a very serious struggle with a totalitarian Soviet Socialist system that was once bent on worldwide expansion. However, that struggle and the bipolar character of much of the world that accompanied it is now gone, and very little of the former Western unity that opposed it remains. Barack Obama is the elected president of the United States, not the free world or anything else.
If history teaches us anything it is to be skeptical of charismatic leaders who appeal to the unfulfilled wishes of those whom they use to form the basis of their political power. I am not suggesting that President Obama is a dangerous socialist or any of that nonsense. Only reminding you that Napoleon, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and the Rev James Jones were once hailed as transormational leaders who would redeem the institutions they took over and fulfill the hopes of those whom they later destroyed. Some obvious examples influence the world today, from Hugo Chavez to the leaders of Iran and others. The public reactions to which you refer, however widespread, are most certainly not a reliable indicator of the beneficial change that is hoped for.
There certainly is an important element of truth in what you described as follows;
Quote: I think it is flat out fantastic that the world's only remaining "superpower", has demonstrated the sense of fair play incumbent in electing "a skinny black kid with a funny name." I don't think it can be overstated.
However, I think you will acknowledge there are other mor prosaic, less flattering and equally accurate ways of describing the same process. We just don't yet know which will prove accurate in the long run.
