Obama’s European Report Card
Filed under: BlackSpin, Barack Obama, Politics, Economy, Obama's Weekly Address
President Obama gave himself a good grade reflecting on his first global economic summit in his weekly address filmed aboard Air Force One.
It's impossible to tell at this point the effectiveness of Obama's performance. Only the results we see down the road - greater international cooperation between nations in fighting terrorism, fixing the global economy and protecting the environment - will determine if this was a first step fixing America's broken image abroad or just a European holiday and photo op with the queen.
Most of the news reports I saw on the summit were light on the substance of what was accomplished in London last week. Perhaps that's because few tangible agreements outside of the commitment to spend a trillion dollars to help smaller countries were achieved.
I got real tired of the news organizations passing off glowing reviews of Michelle Obama wowing a class of schoolgirls as real news in these serious times.
But I guess its okay for now. The president made the solid case that the world's richest countries have to look beyond their own narrow interests if they are to pull out of this economic nosedive.
President Obama planted seeds of international cooperation in London. Let's give some time to see if anything grows from the effort.
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Paul Shepard blogs the Democrat side of politics for Black Voices. He has been a journalist for 16 years on the national urban/minority affairs beat for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and for AP in Washington, D.C. He now runs his own public affairs consulting firm, Shepard Strategic Communications.
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