Watching Barack Obama's first press conference as president-elect yesterday, I was struck by how ordinary the man came off on the small screen-quite a contrast to the Messiah-like fervour he inspired in the huge crowds that came out to see him during the election campaign. No doubt this was intentional on the part of Mr. Obama and his advisers: the businesslike tone was designed to begin the process of deflating expectations of what he will be able to accomplish and how quickly.
Eventually, the glow surrounding Mr. Obama will fade-as it does for all politicians – though I suspect that he will have a longer honey-moon among his compatriots than among citizens of foreign lands. I include Canadians in this observation.
Already, those of us who weren't aware of all his positions have learned that the president-elect supports capital punishment and opposes same-sex marriage.
We'd already known that Mr. Obama favours increasing the number of NATO troops in Afghanistan, though it's just beginning to sink in that Canada's decision to withdraw in 2011, no matter the situation on the ground, is likely to come under US pressure and may even have to be re-visited. And if that wouldn't be sufficient to cause disillusion on our side of the border, the Toronto Star's former environment reporter, Peter Gorrie, predicts that Mr. Obama is about to put the final nail in the Kyoto coffin:
"Obama will not commit the United States to meet the emissions target - a cut to 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012 - that it accepted then rejected under the 1997 agreement. Instead, his goal is to get back down to 1990 levels by 2020.
Everyone wants and needs the United States to be part of the talks, and any solution. And, for the time being, Obama is unassailable. So, his target will be adopted. While it falls far short of the cuts that scientists insist are required to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, it's the new Kyoto."
UPDATE
On the op-ed page of Sunday's New York Times, Al Gore weighs in with advice for president-elect Barack Obama, which suggests that he, too, has given up on the U.S. endorsing Kyoto and its targets, notwithstanding it being an agreement he negotiated as vice-president:
"The United States should lead the way by putting a price on carbon here at home, and by leading the world's efforts to replace the Kyoto treaty next year in Copenhagen with a more effective treaty that caps global carbon dioxide emissions and encourages nations to invest together in efficient ways to reduce global warming pollution quickly, including by sharply reducing deforestation."
As Peter Gorrie writes in the column linked above, "Prime Minister Stephen Harper must be pinching himself over his great luck."
