World Confused by Clinton Situation nytimes.com
I though you might appreciate a bit of global perspective here, brees. Note that this is from the bland AP, not the dreaded liberal biased commie WH spin propagator NYT. Quoted in full.
Perhaps the headline in the conservative Oslo daily Aftenposten says it best: ''Impeachment confuses the world.''
Editors and journalists around the world wonder why Americans are making such a big deal about a politician's private life -- even if it is their president.
''We see this as completely crazy,'' says Helen Vogt, foreign editor of the Norwegian news agency NTB.
Add a big dash of boredom -- and that about sums up the world media view of the saga of President Clinton, now that talk of an affair in the White House has segued into talk along partisan lines in the Senate impeachment proceedings.
''Once we knew Clinton would not be removed from office, we saw the trial as sort of symbolic spanking,'' says Gerard Dupuy, editorial writer for the left-leaning daily Liberation in Paris, where Clinton news long ago dropped off the front page.
''It's like going to a football match and knowing it's fixed because you know what the result will be,'' says David Richardson, foreign editor of Press Association, a news agency that serves Britain's newspapers. His clients have rarely inquired about Clinton developments ''once we got over the novelty of a president being put on trial,'' he says.
And yet, many journalists add, though the story has largely dropped off the world's front pages, a lesson is being reinforced for the readers still paying attention: This is how a democracy works.
Press restrictions in many countries would ban the reporting of most, if not all, of the details in the Clinton case -- and not just the salacious ones.
''The proceedings show that even the president can be brought to justice,'' says Mohammed Mashmoushi, deputy editor in chief of the leftist Lebanese newspaper As-Safir. ''They confirm that democracy in the U.S. is still strong, even though democracy can be exploited for political purposes.''
Ezio Mauro, editor of La Repubblica, a Rome-based liberal daily, says Italian readers admire a democracy that can impeach its president without ''belittling'' itself. ''(Still) they are surprised that such a powerful man may have to resign for a private matter,'' he says.
''The proceedings show positively that Americans are really trying to find truth and ways to resolve the problem,'' says Choi Maeng-ho, international news editor of The Dong-A Ilbo, a mass-circulation national daily in Seoul.
Other journalists argue, however, that the impeachment proceedings have tarnished the United States' image and exposed its citizens -- and particularly its politicians -- as hopelessly judgmental and naive.
For a sex scandal to shake a society's foundations, says Tapio Sadeoja, foreign editor of Finland's largest evening tabloid, Ilta-SanomatSadeoja, is ''just so incomprehensible to Europeans.''
''Spaniards don't think the case will affect democracy in America, but it will reinforce their perception that American politicians are puritanical about sex and have no scruples when it comes to going after their enemies,'' says Antonio Cano, foreign editor of Spain's left-leaning El Pais newspaper.
Adds Emeka Izeze, editor of the Lagos Guardian, Nigeria's most prominent newspaper, ''For one year, the Americans have attempted to force us to believe that the most important thing happening is the sexual misdemeanor of a man who happens to be their president.''
In Russia, never mind Americans' tut-tutting over the sex stuff: Such matters as perjury or obstruction of justice aren't even considered serious offenses.
''People who are interested in politics see the shades, such as Republicans' interests behind the proceedings, but an average reader only sees the developments as something absurd,'' says Igor Golembiovsky, editor of the liberal New Izvestia daily in Moscow. He says the proceedings have ''undermined a general respect for the U.S. democracy.''
Vibeke Sperling, head of the foreign desk at the leading Copenhagen daily Politiken, says Clinton's fight for his political life over an internal matter has inadvertently strengthened some of the leaders the United States tries to police, such as Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic.
''A lot of the world wishes they (Americans) would just get it over with and behind them,'' says Mike Osborne of the Australian Associated Press news agency.
A lot of Americans wish that too. Others would prefer to just keep telling us how stupid the "move on" crowd is. |
