Gutiérrez and Obama

I like Obama. But we all have labeled him the “lighthouse of the free world,” and I’m sick and tired of that brand. Obama called! Quiet, please! Listen devotedly to his Gospel. I’m fine with him giving the OK to the new economic policy of the Spanish government, but if he really is fond of Zapatero, he should stop playing the role of a tutor who grades the decisions Zapatero makes.

Did he call to congratulate him for his good move, or to give him a sweet treat for having done what he said he had to do? I don’t think you are helping a prime minister friend of yours if, in front of his countrymen, you make him look like a discombobulated man that had to be kept on a leash and shown the right path. Bravo, José Luis! I made you open your eyes! Congratulations, my friend!

Obama is forgetting that, in Spain, a threatening call sells more newspapers than an encouraging one. Judging by the size of the headlines that his previous phone calls have sparked in our papers, it’s obvious that we get more excited by smacks than by praise. The alleged telling-off that took place a month ago got really big headlines; the not-so-sure congratulations the day before yesterday was hardly reflected in the table of contents. So we can conclude that Obama’s exhortations get more attention than his applause.

In both cases, I wonder how the White House would react to the reciprocal behavior: being called by the president of the E.U., exhorting him to go further with the Wall Street reform he left aside; being reproached for calling off the global summit despite the generosity we showed in accepting some Guantánamo inmates who never were our problem, but were Obama’s. It’s sad we never get to know the answers or replies of our president.

It would be nice to know how deeply Obama is aware of Spanish accounts — the actual knowledge he has of our country, its financial situation and its parliamentary reality. Is this role of guru of our business that we ourselves gave him the natural consequence of his wisdom or the result of his position? Would he be willing to come to Spain to deal with the elusive parliament speakers himself, or to give the Méndez brothers a good telling-off? I’m afraid we are still yokels when these issues are referred to in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times or the White House.

Antonio Gutiérrez, new star member of the PSOE party in the 2004 elections, rewarded by being appointed president of the Economic Commission, wrote yesterday in El País, after six years without saying a word, the following reflection: “Cheering the leaders on regarding their political stature over and over again so that they impose difficult measures, although hard ones, is usually a deceitful ruse used by the right wing to confuse the left wing governments.” This was the culmination of an article aggressively against labor reform working once again as the lone, odd voice. The irrelevant political career of this unruly member of the parliament is over. Six years missing, only to come back now challenging Obama!