U.S. Called 'Drunk With Power'
Commentary by CBS News Chief European Correspondent Tom Fenton.
When European politicians publish a manifesto that describes the United States as "drunk with power," it’s time for Americans to start listening to what their longtime friends and allies are saying.
The recent manifesto of the socialist bloc in the European Parliament – which includes the Germans, French and the British – should have been a wake-up call. The tectonic plates of American and European interests are shifting. And some comfortable and long-held American assumptions may get crushed in the process.
When Europeans think of America these days, they think of the death penalty, gun violence, mindless television and bad food. The picture presented by the media (and that includes much of the British media) is such a caricature that most Americans would not recognize it. But it is a picture that is increasingly shaping the views of European voters and their governments.
What is happening to transatlantic relations may have been inevitable. Without what one British commentator calls the "glue of the Cold War," the relationship is in danger of falling apart.
Europe is becoming as much a rival as an ally – an economic giant that is challenging America in trade, and is trying to develop an independent military capacity that would make it less dependent on the United States and NATO. That’s both the good news and the bad news.
 CBS News Correspondent Tom Fenton |
The bad news is that Europeans do not have the will to spend the money to carry a heavier military load, merely the urge to take a more independent stand in world affairs, and that could mean trouble for the Bush administration.
President Bush will be coming to Europe in June to sell the allies on his national missile defense program, which is regarded as dangerous and unwelcome by European governments. Dangerous because it upsets the Russians, and unwelcome because it will require the Europeans to rethink some of their basic assumptions about national defense.
It does not help that Mr. Bush is almost universally depicted here as a lightweight, at best. And a former governor who dispatched criminals to death row in record numbers.
Much of this criticism is merely European cultural snobbery – and hypocritical, coming comes from the inventors of the guillotine and the fomentors of two world wars. But the current climate of anti-Americanism is going to make the President’s job just that much harder.
By Tom Fenton
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