To be honest it has significantly more impact than whomever sits in Aras an Uachtarain…

Lest we forget the rein of incompetence that was president Bush

“Rather than trying to decide the outcome of the election on Facebook, the best thing us Europeans can do is to build alliances with the decent Americans struggling for real change.” This is the only line in this article that was not filled with hate or contempt or bias! I am an American living in Ireland. It saddens me to see the polarized climate back home. Just like it saddened me to see the hatred for America when I moved here nine years ago. For the past four years I have been able to feel more comfortable and safe as an American abroad. So, if that’s the only thing Obama has done, at least it’s something!

I don’t think anyone’s under any illusion about Obama (at least I hope not), he’s shown himself to be just another US politician. He is the lesser of two evils though. i.e. More likely to push for green tech/energy, a little less likely to start a war with Iran, less likely to give the rich incredible tax breaks, and he’s more likely to push for women/emigrants/gay rights.

It’s one of 2 options, one of which is slightly better for America and by extension the world, so I don’t see the harm in Europeans voicing their opinion on the matter.

Obama worse than bush? please! and then to say that America is the world’s only superpower, he’d want to get a globe for himself and check out a place called China!!!

The democrats are by far the lesser of two evils. George W Bush never declared himself a ‘vulgar oil merchant.’ The way you breezed over the fact that he invaded Iraq for nothing in that article is actually quite alarming. And I would imagine the reason Europeans are hoping Obama get re-elected is because the democrats have shown time and time again that they’re willing to work with Europe, whereas the Republicans tend not to be.

Did George W Bush write this??

Wow America bashing, how original……. yawn….. And I’d still prefer Obama

FOR not with Afghanistan.

Priceless. A lefty whinging about another lefty not being far enough to the left.

Mr Cronin will be screaming for real if the Republicans triumph and return America to the 1950s.

Obama has to win

Well in fairness we can barely run our own countries, so I don’t think Americans could care less what we think about the election.

You refer to yourself as a campaigning journalist!!! A polarising one more like. I also read your recent article on the euro, 8th Oct. You were particularly scathing about the Association for the Monetary Union of Europe (AMUE) and its researcher Stefan Colligen. You titled his paragraph, Spawning a Monster!!!!! In todays article you referred to someone else as having ‘Turgid Prose’. Seriously David, how can you expect people to take your articles seriously if you come across as tediously pompous or bombastic, this being the real meaning of turgid. Your desire to be perceived as clever supersedes your duty as a journalist to be fair and balanced. Like the Analog signal yesterday I will now be switching you off.

I don’t think anyone’s under any illusion about Obama (at least I hope not), he’s just another politician. He is the lesser of two evils. ie More likely to push for green tech funding, a little less likely to start a war with Iran and less likely to give the rich incredible tax breaks..

Fair point Vinnie, but if a journalist wants to be taken seriously they should be more detached and less hysterical. What well this article achieve only polarise opinions and exclude reasoned debate. There is so much to read and so many people offering opinions on all these social medias we tend to become more selective. If you want to express an opinion as David does, shouldn’t the primary aim be to not alienate your target audience.

I guess you won’t be voting for Obama then!

I got as far as something about nuclear weapons and Belgium and stopped. This article is just very very poor; badly written, rambling from one issue to another, scant on evidence, no new research and worst of all its not interesting.

This is the silliest article I’ve read in a long time and it gave me a good giggle over breakfast. The author is so far removed from reality that he may as well have written it from the feckin’ moon. I’ll be cheering on Obama all the way and I hope it makes the author scream and scream and scream.

Lambasts everything Obama inherited and says There was a “general honesty to Bush aggression” …..this read like an extended troll comment…….and what did the Romans ever do for us eh, well apart from the minor adjustments in health care – if the shift was so minor why all they rhetoric to undo obamacare ?? seriously this guy is so wrong even on just basis facts —-his article is atrocious…I get his obviously anti democrat and pro republican but he makes the case with the intellect of a secondary school debater…

That’s the sort of shite I was coming out with when I was seventeen as well.

Come back and say it doesn’t affect us when Europe gets caught between a Romney Putin conflict.

I hate to break it to Cronin but it’s choice between Obama and Romney, not between Obama and John Pilger.

P.

After reading that silly article I would certainly be disinclined to buy any of the author’s books

I’ll tell you what would have been wrong four years ago: putting the presidency within a dodgy prawn salad of Sarah effin’ Palin’s mitts. THAT would have been wrong.

Terrible terrible article.

George Bush Snr — Gulf War 1 — Bill Clinton —peace — George W Bush — Gulf War II and record Deficit — Barack Obama — Bin Laden Dead, Gaddaffi Dead, better health care, nicer guy alround , point is Democrats are a million times better in power than republicans! Rant Over

Too much indignation in the press, not enough research and time dedicated to writing a good article.

I can’t believe that a writer for the Journal could write an article that would appear to be pro-Romney, the man is a bald-faced liar, and an incompetent boob.
The tone of this article is inappropriate for a news outlet that should be unbiased, and the author plainly fails to see how evil the regime of G.W. Bush was.

there’d be no way to give bin laden a fair trial if he was captured

I agree the Bush regime was evil, but seriously how can anyone look at Obama’s last four years and not see a continuation of agenda with a different PR spin?

Whether it is bogative weapons of mass destruction or the shelling of a country for “humanitarian” purposes a war is war (except when it is kinetic military action)
Obama or Romney will still continue to feed the war machine.

I will await the flood of red thumbs and arguments but just please look up and see which president has put most troops into the field over the last few decades, you may find he has a ‘peace’ prize.

TheJournal is teetering on the edge for me. I enjoy the articles but the content quality is getting a little sensational recently. Articles like this do no favours for the credibility of TheJournal.

Mr Cronin your blatant bias renders this article a rant. Particularly farsical is your defense of Bush admonishing his intransigence to the black poor, his maniacal aggression and cowboy style dishonest war mongering as being ‘ah sure that’s just what the fella was like’. He was the leader of the free world. As Europeans we are also part of that world. We didn’t trust or like him. That’s why we do like Obama. He is intelligent and calm. He is the best thing, still, that your great country has seen since Bush. Spend more time understanding europeans and you’d understand the love affair.

Obama WILL win.

I really don’t know where to start with what is wrong with this article. Whilst it raises some valid points, to say that Obama is “worse than Bush” and that the only good thing he has done is introduce gay marriage is ludicrous. He has brought in major health reforms ensuring that every single person in the US can have access to health care if they wish. He has also stopped health insurance companies from discriminating based on previous conditions, age, sex etc – this is something that Ireland and the EU should learn from. He has also ensured that health insurance companies cannot block a womans right to abortion and has brought in legislation insuring an extra 4million children. He has reduced prescription costs for medicare (elderly on low income) patients by 50%.

He has repealed the Dont Ask Dont Tell Act. He has introduced a federal hate crime law which includes sexual orientation. He has extended benefits for same sex partners of government employees. Ended the ban on HIV+ travellers and holiday makers to the USA. He has pulled the troops out of Iraq and to say that is no major deal because the damage has already been done is absurd, the damage was done by Bush who you say was better than Obama. Obama was one of the few senators who voted against the war in Iraq in the first place so he is completely blameless. He is also pulling the troops out of Afghanistan. Libya was an international effort, whilst I dont agree with that invasion, there’s a lot more people to criticise than Obama. He has brought in legislation to ensure poorer families can send their children to college and university. He has taken steps and brought in legislation to end pay discrimination for women.

I am disapointed that he has not closed Guantanamo Bay but you need to recognise he has signed an executive order ordering its closure and this is likely to happen if he secures a second term. The list goes on but please don’t say the only thing he has done is endorsed gay marriage because that is just the tip of a very large ice-berg. If you think Bush was better, then you may as well hope for a Romney victory and see how that effects Europe and the world.

It makes little difference to us who sits in the Oval Office

Pretty sure I said that the other day and someone got all previous on me.

Wow,sounds like somebody had a real dislike for Americans. Hope the rest of Ireland doesn’t feel that way. Very passionate article, I wonder has the author ever been here? Or just pick and chooses what he would like to believe about us. I personally would like to see Obama be president for the next four years. He was left with a mess and has tried to make it better.

Finally, an honest article about Obama in the European media… People in Europe should put aside the anti-American cliches and stereotypes that make them hate Bust and love Obama (or see Obama as the lesser evil). If there is any non-cosmetic difference b/ween them, it is that Obama is worse. Glenn Greenwald has a great series of articles in The Guardian on the subject, which is well-worth following.

For example,
“But if there is one thing the 2008 campaign should have permanently taught, it is that campaign rhetoric often bears little relationship to what a person will do once empowered. More important, it is almost certainly the case that an Obama-led attack on Iran would generate far more public support than a Romney-led attack, because most Democrats will almost certainly cheer for the former while pretending to be horrified by the latter, will while Republicans would support both (that’s the dynamic that made the very same “counter-terrorism” policies that were so divisive in the Bush years become wildly popular once Obama embraced them).
That’s true on the international level as well. Recall the 2008 CIA report fretting about growing anti-war sentiment in western Europe and concluding that the best weapon to safeguard against its continuation would be the election of Obama. That’s because, the CIA presciently realized, Obama’s election would massively increase public support for US wars because it would be a kind, sophisticated, progressive constitutional scholar rather than a swaggering, evangelical Texas cowboy who would be the face of them. Add to all that the Nixon-to-China dynamic – just as only a conservative president could have established relations with the Chinese Communists, arguably only a Democratic president could start a new war in the Muslim world, cut Social Security, etc. – and the picture is far more muddled than many like to depict it as being.”

He will win…Mitt is a git and a Mormon, … I mean moron…..poTAYto—poTAHto

Banker puppets ..no change more hardship more war .

lol @ this article, pure crap.

I agree with the general thrust of this article. Those who dismiss it out of hand know little of US foreign policy. A case could certainly be made, in my view, that Clinton was responsible for more civilian deaths than Bush. Have people forgotten/ never heard of the million plus civilians inc. 500,000 kids who died as a result of Clinton’s sanctions on Iraq. This was more deadly, if perhaps less destabilising regionally, than Bush’s aggression.

The article also draws attention to little known issues such as the fairly recent coup in Honduras which the US could turn off with a phone call if they wanted to as well.

It is not anti-American to criticise it’s foreign policy. If we compared countries to people we would say that it is a friendly act to tell someone if their behaviour was out of order.

Finally, an honest article about Obama in the European media. People in Europe should put aside the anti-American cliches and stereotypes that make them hate Bush but love Obama (or see Obama as the “lesser evil”). If there is any non-cosmetic difference between Obama and Romney it is that Obama is worse.
As Glenn Greewnald recently said in The Guardian:

“it is almost certainly the case that an Obama-led attack on Iran would generate far more public support than a Romney-led attack, because most Democrats will almost certainly cheer for the former while pretending to be horrified by the latter, will while Republicans would support both (that’s the dynamic that made the very same “counter-terrorism” policies that were so divisive in the Bush years become wildly popular once Obama embraced them).

That’s true on the international level as well. Recall the 2008 CIA report fretting about growing anti-war sentiment in western Europe and concluding that the best weapon to safeguard against its continuation would be the election of Obama. That’s because, the CIA presciently realized, Obama’s election would massively increase public support for US wars because it would be a kind, sophisticated, progressive constitutional scholar rather than a swaggering, evangelical Texas cowboy who would be the face of them. Add to all that the Nixon-to-China dynamic – just as only a conservative president could have established relations with the Chinese Communists, arguably only a Democratic president could start a new war in the Muslim world, cut Social Security, etc. – and the picture is far more muddled than many like to depict it as being.”

Greenwald writes a series of articles on this issue for The Guardian I think is well worth reading: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/glenn-greenwald

Ah hello!!!!!!!

Blah Blah Blah, what a waste of time reading this.
Please use your skills to uncover how nothing has changed in our Nation since The Irish Conservative Party took over with all its bluster about change and new transparent politics.

just to clear America is no benign entity, Obama has blood on his hands..

This is quite good, by Ed West:

Note to European liberals – no one in America gives a damn what you think about the US election

http://tgr.ph/P4oDbv

It’s not Bradley Manning – it’s Breanna Manning. For all Obama has done for LGBT people, the erasure of Breanna’s gender identity is incomprehensible.

Why does The Journal seem to be fixated on one ideological perspective in its articles? Surely to be a valid opinion section you need to have columnists on both sides of the subject rather than exclusively left-wing and very liberal.

What is a lefty can somebody explain me? And why do most people o. Journal.ie feel they are not to be listened too? Are they ill informed? What is it? Are there righties too and what are they – do people like them? I never here people talking about them?

As a Gay Irish American, it very much matters to me that Barack Obama be re elected,
Romney/Ryan will put down all our efforts for equality for at least another decade.

Great article!

Thinking Mitt Romney’s Foreign Policy would be any better is a joke.

What does it matter to my life who is commander in chief of the USA.

Seeing as previous US administrations have played a big part in forcing US to pay for the debts of private banks, maybe a change of administration might work out better for US.

ok I better come out with my hands up but at the same time cannot apologize for the fact that down through the years I have read a lot about what happen to society and human behavior at large during the 1930’s – 40′s I.e the great depression and world war 2 – what my main point is, the strongest will always be at the top even if we can’t see them or we don’t want to see them.(good or bad) As I said I make no apologize for those who do not know there history

This article is hysterical. More Utopian than realistic.
No doubt the author has no pressing income issues.
I ocassionaly read the Journal and it amazes me how much time people have on their hands.
Wake up.
ROMNEY will win because it’s all about the economy.
A healthy vibrant US economy benefits Americans and a lot of the western world. That’s part of history.
I would think that anyone who wants to have a better life for themselves and their children would want to live in an economically healthy environment, what ever country that is in.
There will always be needs for the less fortunate and underdeveloped countries, but to help them there has to be a means. There will be no means, just like there has not been for the last four years, under Obama.
As for America’s military dominance. I don’t know any other country that has more of their young (military) buried around the world, especially in Europe,
because they tried to help other countries.
Capitalism is not always an easy pill but it works.
I work with a lot of Latinos (some are illegal immigrants) here and they all want Romney to win because they are hungry and have a simple basic understanding that if there is work they can give their young families back home in Mexico and South America a better life.
Beautiful prophetic “Hope and Change” did not put food on the table.

(An Irishman living on the US for over 20 years.)

@Stewie Griffin Who left it to him. Did you not know that both Congress and the Senate was Democrat for Bushes second term. So it wasn’t Bush left him the bad economy.
@Colin Kavanagh You relay need to get a grip. nearly half of doctors have declared their willingness to leave when Obama care comes in it is so costly and will put an average $2000.00 extra per household.
Obama was one of the few senators who voted against the war in Iraq. About the only vote he ever made in the Senate. His usual vote was “Present” He only Voted against that because he was a Muslim. But then was taken under the Rev Wright and Bill Ayers wing in Chicago.