I’ve been writing a lot about the EU lately, and I apologize to both our readers if I’m boring you. But it’s been an eventful week.
Today, Nikos Konstandaras, the editor of a Greek newspaper, pens an opinion piece for the Washington Post website about last week’s Irish vote rejecting the Lisbon Treaty. If you haven’t been paying attention — and you may be excused for your apathy — the Lisbon Treaty was the compromise for structural EU reform following the defeat of the EU Constitution in 2005.
In his analysis, Konstandaras essentially blames Irish voters for holding up progress across Europe. He implies that they are stupid and provincial, blaming the defeat on “more domestic concerns regarding abortion, taxes and jobs that seem to have swayed their vote.” He goes on to urge European leaders to ignore the vote and press ahead.
Alas, Konstandaras’ argument, which has been embraced by other European commentators, is as arrogant as it is incorrect. And its tenor exemplifies why efforts to reform the EU continue to go down to defeat.
So, what did he get wrong?
Start with a simple, undeniable fact: Had the same referendum been held in virtually any other European nation, including France, Germany and the UK, it almost certainly would have been defeated. That’s exactly the reason that none of those nations’ governments put the treaty up for a vote. So the Irish vote, which Konstandaras wants to cast aside, was the one and only barometer for popular sentiment.
So, why are voters ready to stand in the way of reform? In short, it comes down to trust. Europeans, by and large, seem to instinctively understand that the EU is broken, and they are wary about handing any further power to Brussels bureaucrats.
Further, the EU is not a democratic institution, and Europeans increasingly seem to realize that. They elect MEPs, but they seem largely irrelevant in the European system. It’s the commissioners and bureaucrats who hold the power. And creating a European president seems a step in the wrong direction.
This shortcoming of democracy is exhibited, time after time, through arrogance. Indeed, the very arrogance that Konstandaras demonstrates by offhandedly dismissing the Irish vote.
I haven’t been in Europe long enough to have a strong opinion about the value of the EU, the Lisbon Treaty or any of the other fine points of European politics. But if I were advising those that think the EU needs to be a strong institution with a structure that allows greater flexibility and decisiveness, I would tell them in clear terms that they have to start listening. Their arrogance is undermining their case and making success harder and harder to achieve.
According to a new YouGov poll, conducted for the Daily Telegraph, If European voters were deciding the U.S. Presidential election, Senator Obama would defeat Senator McCain by a margin of 52 percent to 15 percent.
The margin is wider in France, Italy and Germany, where Obama attracted 65, 70 and 67 percent respectively. In Russia, the race tightens, with Obama attracting 31 percent to McCain’s 24 percent. In the UK, Obama scrapes just short of a majority, with 49 percent against McCain’s 14 percent.
What’s striking about these figures isn’t the outcome. Spend five minutes on the street in any part of Europe, and you’ll learn that liberalism and the welfare state are part of the political DNA. In that sense, most voters in Europe can’t conceive of electing a truly conservative politician. And given their animus towards our current President, the notion that America might elect another Republicans leaves Europeans mystified and fearful.
No, what’s striking about these figures is what lies beneath.
YouGov also asked Europeans whether “You think the United States is overall a force for good or force for evil in today’s world?”
Overall, 43 percent said the U.S. is a force for evil, while only 27 percent said force for good. 30 percent weren’t sure. Indeed, of the five nations surveyed, only Italy, by a margin of 49 percent to 27 percent, thought the U.S. is a force for good. A plurality of voters in the UK, France, Germany and Russia all thought the U.S. is a force for evil, by margins of 2, 12, and an astonishing 40 percentage points respectively.
Do Europeans think that Barrack Obama will help make the U.S. a force for good? We don’t know. If YouGov asked, they haven’t revealed the results.
But consider how far we’ve come in just seven years. On September 13, 2001, NATO — which includes all of the countries surveyed except Russia — invoked the mutual-defense provisions of its founding treaty for the only time in its history to support the U.S.
Today, nearly half of Europeans think that the U.S. is a force for evil. That’s a pretty sobering thought.
Now, when we Americans hear such things, we usually point the finger back at Europe, saying that it’s them who have gone soft, and we who are standing by our principles. Leadership is lonely sometimes, we like to think.
I have to admit that I’m not entirely sure where I come down on this. It’s abundantly clear that as a nation, we’ve made our share of mistakes over the last few years. Much has been written about squandered opportunities after 9/11. Personally, I think a better leader — a statesman in the mold of ages past — could have seized that opportunity and shaped a truly world-changing moment. That said, I’m not entirely sure that in 20 years, we won’t look back and celebrate the rise of democracy in the Middle East that resulted from the agony of the period we’re living through now. I am doubtful, but as ever, hopeful.
What is also clear is that Europe is changing as quickly as the U.S. Europeans used to have long memories. The well of gratitude for the U.S contributions to winning two world wars and the Cold War was deep. Now, it seems, that well is dry.
I attribute this to the passing of the generation that lived through World War II and met so many liberating GIs as they passed through towns and villages. I also point to the mass multi-culturization of Europe by immigrants from every corner of the globe. Those who have only recently arrived have no cause for gratitude. Nevertheless, it’s sad to see old friendships, wrought from the fires of conflict, wither as interests diverge.
Europeans don’t vote in the U.S. presidential election, but they are fixated to its happenings. Many think that Obama will win handily. When they ask me, I tell them that I don’t know what the outcome will be, but that they should expect a very close, hard-fought contest, and that the outcome may look a lot like it did on that long night in 2000.
They surprised, often incredulous looks I get in reply speak volumes in reply.
And as the next President, whoever he may be, begins to formulate his own foreign policy, the views of Europe towards the United States are something that he should, and must, consider.
NOTE: The raw data of the survey can be found here (.xls file).
A quarter of the world’s wildlife has disappeared since 1970, according to a new report prepared by the Zoological Society of London — a scientific, not political, organization — for the World Wildlife Fund.
Before I go any further, let me preempt inevitable comment: This isn’t about global warming. Well, not just about global warming, anyway.
The report details the wide range of causes. Habitat loss is the most significant, but there are many other factors — nearly all related to human activities.
Can we agree that this is a bad thing? It seems to me that we certainly ought to.
But inevitably, the question turns to what we should do in response. Should we limit human development? Can we? As Jim likes to point out, if we think we’re going to get China to play ball with touch environmental restrictions to protect species, we’re kidding ourselves.
Some organizations, like the Nature Conservancy, are using private donations to buy land, which they then preserve from development. That seems like a good approach. So do responsible government moves to declare certain areas national parks, wildlife preserves and the like. But that only works to a certain degree. What else can be done? I don’t know. I wish I had the solution.
But it does seem worthy of our attention. In addition to our responsibility to be stewards of God’s creatures, there are practical effects of species loss as well.
And, needless to say, the problem of species loss is only going to get worse and the effects of global warming become more pronounced. Just ask the polar bears, who this week were designated a threatened species by the U.S. government.
Finally, an interesting side-note. This report was covered today by the BBC, Telegraph, Guardian and several other outlets here in the UK, including shockingly the Daily Mail. When that group agrees on anything, it’s a notable story. And apparently, the report has not yet been released in the U.S., as there has been exactly zero coverage of it. I suspect my friends in the U.S. will be hearing more about this in the coming days. When you do, remember, you read it here first.
Recently, the great folks at Public Affairs News, which covers the UK and European PA industries, asked me to write a review of Clay Shirky’s outstanding new book Here Comes Everybody. The review has been published in their May issue, but it’s not on their website, so here’s a reprint:
Too often, books focusing on so-called ‘web 2.0’ seem an endless repetition of the same old talking points. But Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody offers a refreshingly different, thoughtful and scholarly perspective.
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Here Comes Everybody is full of insights, and is a must-read, especially for those who suspect that the buzz about the internet’s impact is over-hyped.
At its core, this is not a book about the internet. Instead, it’s really about social behavior and group dynamics.
Shirky’s conclusion that the internet has fundamentally altered the way people form groups and, more importantly, what those groups can accomplish, is spot on and well argued.
‘Social tools are dramatically improving our ability to share, co-operate, and act together. As everyone… adopts these tools, it is leading to epochal change,’ he writes. In isolation, that view sounds delightfully theoretical and detached, but what’s the practical impact?
One of Shirky’s central arguments centres on the concept of mass amateurisation. In the same way that the printing press brought the written word to the masses, the internet is equipping anyone with an interest with the tools necessary to take on almost any task. In public affairs parlance, we might call the same concept by a different name: democratisation.
Anyone who has observed the effectiveness of well-funded NGOs backed by hundreds of thousands of supporters has seen its impact. This, Shirky would argue, demonstrates the de-professionalisation of public affairs.
For sure, relationships are still important, but because the internet makes it easier for groups to form and take action, public pressure on elected officials is going to become even easier, more frequent, and more effective.
One can reasonably argue over whether this development will ultimately result in better government policy. But it is now beyond question that it is happening.
While specialists will always be necessary to help clients navigate the vagaries of government, when it comes to making an impact, public affairs practitioners have a choice: adapt activities in light of the societal changes that the internet is sweeping forward or be tethered to methods and approaches whose effectiveness will steadily decline in coming years.
(Cross posted at the day-job blog.)
Dr. Joyner nails it:
There’s a reason that freedom of speech and freedom of press occupy the same space in the Bill of Rights; they’re inextricably linked. Without information to form opinions, the ability to express opinions is meaningless. Conversely, information is useless unless one is free to share one’s opinions.
And there’s more:
America’s early journalists were merely citizens interested in the news. There was no such thing as J-School and the concept of credentialing would have seemed absurd. Over time, however, journalism moved from a craft to a profession, with many of the accouterments of the latter. This has been mostly, but not entirely, positive.
Professionalism arose out of a dark period in American media. Yellow Journalism and a tabloid mentality stripped newspapers of any value, since people had no reason to trust what they were reading. A canon of ethics was necessary, including the expectation that reporters attempt to present information objectively and truthfully. Theoretically, at least, opinion was to be clearly labeled and distinguished from factual reportage. In reality, of course, that ideal was never reached. Given that human beings staff newspapers and other media, it was never attainable to begin with.
Joyner’s discussion of these fundamentals of freedom and the professionalization of the media spring from a larger dialogue about the role and responsibility of citizen journalists.
In his new book Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky embarks on a lengthy and useful discussion about how technology has driven the mass amateurization of work previously limited to professionals. His most compelling example harkens back to the invention of the printing press. Moveable type brought information to the masses. It also made thousands of scribes irrelevant. (Or redundant, in the parlance of the UK.)
Needless to say, the scribes didn’t take kindly to the printers. The monks considered the ink-stained wretches beneath them — a scourge undermining the written word. But when, nearly a century after the printing press was invented, a leading scribe wrote a lengthy defense of his profession, calling forth the weight of history and tradition, he sought the broadest audience, and so he ensured his essay was printed on a printed press.
Today, we find the professional media zealously (and ineffectually) guarding the gates to their castle. The difference between professional and amateur is no longer relevant. Each is capable of gathering and distributing the news, and each must have the freedom to do so. Arguing over the scope of credentials is akin to quarreling over how much water to put in the bucket while your house burns to the ground. It’s the freedom that matters, not the credentials.
On tonight’s Hugh Hewitt show, Connor gets in nearly as many words as I do.
Not long ago, Newsweek editor Jon Meachum asked a class at Columbia Journalism School if any of the students read Timeor Newsweek. The answer, from all of the 100 students, was “no.”
By comparison, a student said that he reads The Economist magazine. Meachum was displeased, and lamented that his magazine did more original reporting, while he contended The Economist offered mostly analysis.
Let me preface this by saying that while I was in Turkey, I loved the Economist. It was the one English-language magazine that I could count on finding, every Monday at the Sheraton Hotel gift shop or D&R books, and that could tell me what was going on back home. (My National Reviews, Weekly Standards, New Republics and Atlantics kept arriving in bunches, usually months after publication.)
And when you’re hard up for fresh reading material while sitting at the Ankara Starbucks, you end up reading the Economist cover to cover, and you find yourself learning a lot that you not only didn’t know, but didn’t think to wonder about. Topics like the right-wing twins who ruled Poland, one as President, the other as Prime Minister. The dynamics of the tribes in Somalia, and which ones were jihadist and which ones weren’t. Zapatero’s foolish outreach to ETA in Spain. The latest power grab by Putin. The internal dynamics of the British Labour Party and the slow, steady rise of David Cameron’s Conservatives. Reviews of books that wouldn’t be hitting American bookshelves for another six months. The exchange rate of the dollar to every major world currency, every week. Mrs. CampaignSpot and I would periodically joke to each other how well-versed we were getting on minutia about far-flung corners of the world — “Honey, can you believe the exchange rate in Bostwana these days?”
The point being that because the Economist seemed to have a small bureau or a stringer in every country in the globe, they always spotlighted news that was completely uncovered by most other media. (Their coverage of Turkey was probably among the best in the English language.) Some folks might be saying that they don’t need to know the political dynamics of other countries, but the Economist writers seemed to know that their mission was to make it interesting, to explain why, for example, violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan was important (i.e., oil pipelines and proximity to Russia, Georgia, Turkey and Iran).
There’s probably a lot of readers of this blog who will say, “I don’t read Newsweek because it’s liberal!” But it’s not just liberal; it’s boring liberalism, very predictable Democratic talking points. (Time’s not much different.) In Newsweek’s pages, the Republican party is always on the verge of cracking up. Democrats are putting their old mistakes behind, and their fresh faces are always shaking up the system. President Bush is always under fire. Pick your Democratic leader - Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Pelosi, Harold Ford - they’ve all gotten their generally glowing profiles.
By comparison, I came across this essay in an Economist from a few weeks ago, about what the toys made in Europe (primarily Lego and Playmobil) say about European values.
On the other hand, Europeans are not as pacifist as they are sometimes portrayed, nor even as anti-gun. Playmobil policemen are armed to the teeth, and have big dogs for chasing Playmobil bank-robbers (who sport stubbly chins beneath their smiles). In the adult world, many Europeans are duly happy to send armed paramilitary police to be peacekeepers, but are fretful about sending their troops into combat.
Yet go farther back in history and violence triggers little concern. There are Playmobil knights and barbarians, pirates and Roman legionaries, all wielding lethal weapons. Europeans can even live with American military toys, if they are old enough: there are Playmobil cowboys from the Wild West, and soldiers from both sides in the American civil war.
The difference is philosophical, says Mrs Schauer. There are no more knights and pirates, so their combat is a “resolved story”. Modern war is “really horror”. That is echoed by Gabi Neubauer, a librarian buying toys in Nuremberg. She suggests that “it is more honourable to fight with a sword, somehow.” Not all explanations are as high-faluting. Asked why Playmobil makes any tiny toy guns at all, Mrs Schauer admits “otherwise, we probably wouldn’t be accepted by boys.”
Now, the article addresses European views on guns, crime, race, etc. But it never hits you over the head of what you’re supposed to think about the fact that European kids rarely play with toy soldiers. You can think it’s part of building a nonviolent society, or you could say it reflects that Europeans no longer pay their armed forces the respect they deserve.
One, you would never see an essay in Time or Newsweek examining what a society’s toys say about its values — that’s too out of the box, too esoteric and abstract when the public, in the eyes of liberal editors, needs to know why Eliot Spitzer’s fall is a tragedy, or how the Democrats will quickly come together behind their nominee. Second, if you did, a Time or Newsweek columnist would not be content to simply draw the ties between European toys and their social views; they would have to tell us whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, and whether or not your children should play with G.I. Joe and Transformers and war toys.
Meachum brags about his magazine’s correspondents in Iraq. Their coverage is fine and noble, but does it really stand out from any other organization’s reporting from Iraq? After a while, the coverage turns into endless versions of “another bomb went off today.” Contrast that to the long-form you-are-there style of Michael Yon.
By the way - I’ve found the Economist’s coverage of the U.S. presidential race hit and miss. (Yeah, they’re a competitor, and so I’ll always be a bit nitpicky about what they’re writing.) But I think the contrast is that Newsweek is offering a product similar to Time and U.S. News and World Report and most daily newspapers, and more than a few political blogs, while the Economist does a pretty good job of giving you something unique every week… Picking an example from the most recent issue, that other European countries, particularly Poland, are jealous of a deal worked out between the Czech Republic and the U.S., where Czech citizens seeking to visit America can now apply for a visa waiver online. Both countries are possible sites for a U.S. missile defense system, and the speculation is that we’re using the visa waivers system as a bargaining chip. Much craftier dealmaking and diplomacy than I’ve come to expect from the State Department in this administration.
Somehow I don’t suspect I’ll be reading that from Eleanor Clift next week.
Marshall: After only two weeks in Europe, I’ve already learned that with the Financial Times and the BBC, the Economist is among the two or three most important and influential publications in Europe. And like you, Jim, I’m already and addict. Why? Because it’s interesting and thoughtful and, even though the stories aren’t longer than what you see in Time or Newsweek, Economist stories have real depth.
That used to be the role that newsmags in the states tried to fill — adding depth to the big stories you were reading about in the papers, and taking the time to write enterprise stories for which few newspapers could find the resources or the space. Unfortunately, like so many other media outlets, the newsmags in the U.S. have gone the McPaper route: lots of flash, graphics and big photos, writing simplified to the eighth grade level, and a general aversion towards risk. Instead, they slap “sex” on their covers, fill the feature pages with big, scary stories about the latest overblown study on cancer or nutrition, and expect us to pay $3.95 a copy at the newsstand.
I can get the inch deep news from cable, or YouTube, or the first page of Yahoo. So when it comes to print media, I want more, not less. More depth. More thoughtfulness. More stories about a wider range of subjects from a broader range of locales. More quality journalism.
The Economist delivers. And it’s thriving. Why can’t other major print outlets get the joke.
I don’t like John McCain. I believe him to be dishonest. Friends who have heard me speak about McCain are often surprised at the depth of the disgust that I feel about the Arizona Senator. For me, he — not the system he attacks so ferociously — is the prime example of what’s wrong with Washington.
So today’s Drudge Report bombshell doesn’t really surprise me at all. Neither does McCain’s apparently casual lie that he has “not been in talks with The New York Times.” An assertion later contradicted by The Politico and his own personal lawyer, who is preparing written answers to the NYT’s questions.
The major question, though, is simple: How much will the story damage McCain’s campaign? McCain’s ham-handed response only ensured that the story would attract substantial coverage. And if Drudge’s latest update is to be believed, the NYT story in question may now run on Friday, ensuring that McCain will get to endure the story through the weekend.
For years, the media overlooked McCain’s hypocrisy and dishonesty because they liked his schtick. Over the last couple of years, however, many reporters seemed to turn on their old pal. How will they treat him now?
It would be wishful thinking to suggest that this will cripple McCain’s campaign. But it could open the spigot on a serious of stories that erode McCain’s carefully contrived Mr. Clean image. And to understand the implications of that, you need only review today’s statement from the McCain campaign which tries fruitlessly to emphasize the very characteristics that the allegedly impending NYT article will call in to question.
This one is easy. For months, the media reported every bombing, every single piece of bad news from Iraq. But the surge has worked, and the media has gone quiet.
Rather than doing cool stories about progress and peace, the media has clammed up, and stories about progress as a result of the surge are few and far between. If it weren’t for great milbloggers like Bill Roggio, it’s hard to say if we would have heard anything at all.
The catalogue of failings of the traditional media continues to grow, but this one is, in my opinion, one of the most egregious.
Cam says: Frankly, I don’t know how you could pick another story. It truly is shocking, and the milbloggers like Michael Yon, Bill Roggio, and others are demonstrating that bloggers can not just opine about events, but step in and cover events that the mainstream media is ignoring. Good pick, Marshall.
Jim: Yup, tough to come up with anything that compares.
My second-place pick - and it’s not as big as the results of the Iraq surge - is, believe it or not, the economy and the housing bubble popping. And it’s not so much that the story was underreported (although the bubble growing and potential risk in previous years looks astonishingly underreported in retrospect) as poorly reported. I don’t think I’m an idiot. But I still haven’t gotten any article that explained why giant international banks thought it was wise to purchase the giant home loans made to people with lousy credit.
Another thing - not long ago many of the world’s central banks got together to pump liquidity into the global economy, for the first time since 9/11. That’s the sort of thing that sounds ominous, but it got two lines on the radio news in the car, and not much coverage elsewhere. Is the global economy on the verge of some real trouble? I feel like a lot of financial and economic reporting might as well be written in Swahili.