obama

Starting Wednesday Nov 5 in the morning and on for days we have been congratulated on our choice of a President. I don't know how much Americans appreciate this, but Europe really looks to the US to set the tone and the pace and most people we have encountered have been disappointed with the last 8 years.

I had a few people tell me they didn't think it mattered much who won between McCain and Obama, since either one would be better than Italy's Silvio Berlusconi (in whose horse stable a man murdered by the Mafia just happen to appear some time back...) Friends also told me that they heard lots about the life of Obama, but all they knew about McCain was french fries (It's a brand like Oreida here).

The day after the election results were announced, I went to the edicola (news stand) at the bottom of the hill for my copy of the historic paper and announced, "I am proud to be an American again!" The shopkeeper laughed and said, "I believe it! Congratulations!"

It don't think it was more than a day after the election and a book from the biggest newspaper in the country was released- I couldn't figure out how they got it on the stands so fast, but then I looked at it (and bought it). It's a nice, full color glossy coffee table collection of all the recent reporting on the election. I suppose they were ready with the whole thing except the cover photo and the forward well in advance. OK- think about this: maybe it's not so far out to imagine USA today or the NY Times putting out a book like this after the election, but can you really imagine that book featuring another country's president?!

It was three days after the election and I was listening to the radio. I thought I heard something about 'young, handsome and tan' but it couldn't be... I still don't have complete faith in my Italian comprehension skills so I wanted to see if there was anything about it in the newspaper. Sure enough, the front page headline was (I'm translating loosely here) BERLUSCONI BLOWS IT, the text began something like this, We all knew it would happen sometime, we just didn't know when. Today the waiting is over and it's a doozy. Berlusconi's first official comments of Obama were, 'What's not to like? He's young, good looking and has a great tan. Of course we can work with him' A famous stand up comedian came out the next night with his hat off and said, "I can't compete with that."

And now we just saw on TV an ad for a new cell phone ring tone- it's 'Born in the USA.' with new Obama lyrics, sung in Italian.