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Monday, June 16, 2008
Obama goes Euro …
“Obamamania” could be about to cross the Atlantic. Barack Obama is planning his first overseas trip since he launched his U.S. presidential bid in February last year - and Britain is penciled in as part of a possible European tour next month, according to today’s Guardian newspaper.
The paper predicts that the Democrat would be a huge draw in Britain, sparking great excitement.
Last week, a survey of global attitudes towards the U.S. election by the independent polling firm Pew reflected his popularity overseas, with 74% of Britons saying they would have confidence in Obama as president compared with 44% for his Republican rival, John McCain.
In France, where the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has invited Obama to visit the Elysee Palace, support for the Democratic senator is even higher: 84% in favor compared with 33% for McCain.
In other political news, London’s Independent newspaper said that President Bush may be on the verge of converting to Catholicism after receiving a hugely warm welcome from Pope Benedict.
“It was a Vatican visit such as no other head of state has ever enjoyed. Instead of greeting him, like all previous high-ranking visitors, in the papal library of the Apostolic Palace, the Pope took Mr. Bush round the medieval St John’s Tower then gave him a tour of the Vatican gardens, culminating in a brief open-air concert by the Sistine Chapel Choir.”
Also fueling the rumor that Bush, a lifelong Methodist, was about to convert is the fact that the president’s brother, Jeb, the former governor of Florida, converted to Catholicism on marrying his wife Columba, a Mexican.
