Stopover in Europe

There’s something frantically retrogressive about Obama’s second European visit: visits to a former concentration camp and the Normandy beaches are important, but he should have thought ahead a bit more.

The U.S. president currently enjoys such fantastic approval ratings in Europe that just being in his presence enchants other politicians. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy especially has been trying to get close to Obama for months now, and Obama finally gave in because he’s been invited to France on June 6th to take part in the 65th anniversary of the Allied landings at Normandy. But he should have begged off.

Obama’s second trip to Europe is marred by something frantically retrogressive. The itinerary – a visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp and a trip to the Normandy invasion beaches – are certainly important and it makes one wonder why Dwight Eisenhower is the only other American president to visit the the Buchenwald memorial. Eisenhower was, of course, commander of the Normandy landings in 1944. Still, Obama should have given it more thought.

That’s the weekend of the Europe-wide parliamentary elections. The continent has had a successful history that began on June 6, 1944, and will culminate on June 7, 2009, when the world will see the crowning achievement: politicians from all European nations voting together in the plenary chamber.

The hatred of Buchenwald and the dead of Omaha Beach all belong without question to the history of the unification of Europe. A historical thread runs from the liberation of the death camps through the rebuilding of Europe and on to the reconciliation between nations. But this dimension is belied by Obama’s visit.

It’s as if he’s participating in an episode on television’s History Channel, almost a mere stopover on his way to the Near East. That’s not enough on a weekend such as this one.