People Cooling on Obama

I know that you can’t tell it from the coverage of the inauguration, but the shine is already coming off Obama. 

Barack Obama got a global standing ovation long before he was elected president. But in a fickle and fast-moving world, the overseas reviews are already turning mixed.

Though much of the world will party through the night Tuesday after Obama is sworn in as America’s 44th president — just as it did when he was elected — there are signs the ardor is cooling as the sheer weight of his challenges sinks in.

A deepening global recession, new hostilities in the Middle East, complications in closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan — an impatient world has a stake in all of them and is asking how much change Obama can deliver.

“Just two months ago, the future president seemed a cross between Superman and Merlin the magician,” Massimo Gramellini wrote in a commentary for Italy’s La Stampa newspaper. “Now he himself admits he won’t be able to keep all his promises, and who knows? Maybe someone will ask for his impeachment by the end of next week.”

“The idealism has diminished,” said Samuel Solvit, who heads an Obama support network in France. “Everyone was dreaming a little. Now people are more realistic.”

Muslims want to know why Obama hasn’t joined the chorus of international criticism of Israel’s Gaza offensive. Last week posters of him were set on fire in Tehran to shouts of “Death to Obama!”