Country Bumpkins

While I am certainly not one to live and die by what the Europeans think about the US, as someone who spent three and a half wonderful years living in Europe I do pay a little bit of attention to the European media. I get online copies of the Telegraph (London) and the Moscow Times. I try to read the Allgemeine as often as I can (which is not as often as I would like) and Die Welt (ja ich spreche Deutsche). There is no doubt that there is a certain sentiment in the European press that sees the US (still) as "the colonies" and as frontier bumpkins. That is why this column caught my eye.

Barack Obama, still fresh from his victory in Iowa last week and confident of another in New Hampshire tonight, has as his signature campaign theme the promise to "end the division" in America. Notice the irony: The scale of his Iowa victory, in a state that's 94% white, is perhaps the clearest indication so far that the division Mr. Obama promises to end has largely been put to rest.
Meanwhile, in Kenya last week a mob surrounded a church in which, according to an Associated Press report, "hundreds of terrified people had taken refuge." The church was put to flame, while the mob used machetes, Hutu-style, to hack to death whoever tried to escape. The killers in this case were of the Luo tribe, their victims were of the Kikuyu, and the issue over which they are bleeding is their own presidential election.
When foreigners assail Americans for being naive, it is often on account of contrasts like these. A nation in which the poor are defined by an income level that in most countries would make them prosperous is a nation that has all but forgotten the true
meaning of poverty. A nation in which obesity is largely a problem of the poor (and anorexia of the upper-middle class) does not understand the word "hunger." A nation in which the most celebrated recent cases of racism, at Duke University or in Jena, La., are wholly or mostly contrived is not a racist nation. A nation in which our "division" is defined by the vitriol of Ann Coulter or James Carville is not a truly divided one--at least while Mr. Carville is married to Republican operative Mary Matalin and Ms. Coulter is romantically linked with New York City Democrat Andrew Stein.

Emphasis mine. I have to admit, the author has a huge point. I did not learn about the tragedy of Darfur in the US media. I knew abour Darfur from the Times of London. Actually, when it comes to learning about what is going on in the Middle East, I turn to the European media more than I do the US media. The European media talked about honor killings and female genital mutilation while the US media talked about Britney, Madonna and Jessica. European media talks about starvation in Darfur while the US media talks about Oprah's latest weight loss. They are talking about how the Benazir Bhutto's killer may have been identified and our media talks about the Golden Globes. When it comes to serious reporting of world events, the US media are indeed country bumpkins when placed side by side with their European Cousins.

That is why it is important for a well informed voter to get their news from a variety of sources. Anyone who only relies on the Star Tribune for their news is only getting one quarter of the story.