Happy Warrior

IF September 11, 2001, was “the day everything changed,” November 4, 2008, was the day everything changed back-at least as far as the rest of the world is concerned. The “global war on terror” was a Bush concept and will expire with his presidency, long past its sell-by date, as far as the “international community” is concerned: Weary Europeans find it unhelpful to the cause of mollifying their own restive Muslim populations, and wealthy Arabs want to get on with buying up the Western world’s banks and soccer teams with a somewhat lighter level of scrutiny than they’ve been subject to these last seven years.

As for President Bush’s own citizens, Code Orange is fine if it’s just taking your shoes off at the airport, but as a 24/7 mindset it’s kind of exhausting. So the United States elected a chief magistrate who talks about health care and job creation and hardly mentions terrorism, except for occasional effusions about invading Pakistan, which one assumes is one of those back-burner midway-through-the-second-term things after he’s lowered the oceans and healed the planet. Certainly, in the chancelleries of Europe they don’t take it too seriously. The Bush fever is assumed to have passed.

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IF September 11, 2001, was “the day everything changed,” November 4, 2008, was the day everything changed back-at least as far as the rest of the world is concerned. The “global war on terror” was a Bush concept and will expire with his presidency, long past its sell-by date, as far as the “international community” is concerned: Weary Europeans find it unhelpful to the cause of mollifying their own restive Muslim populations, and wealthy Arabs want to get on with buying up the Western world’s banks and soccer teams with a somewhat lighter level of scrutiny than they’ve been subject to these last seven years.

As for President Bush’s own citizens, Code Orange is fine if it’s just taking your shoes off at the airport, but as a 24/7 mindset it’s kind of exhausting. So the United States elected a chief magistrate who talks about health care and job creation and hardly mentions terrorism, except for occasional effusions about invading Pakistan, which one assumes is one of those back-burner midway-through-the-second-term things after he’s lowered the oceans and healed the planet. Certainly, in the chancelleries of Europe they don’t take it too seriously. The Bush fever is assumed to have passed.