Europe is Your New Mr. Irrelevant

Fairly weighty news out of Paris, where the Times' Steven Erlanger writes that Obama is "schedule-conflicting" (that is, ditching) an important EU summit. Facing similar domestic pressures, most other American Presidents would probably have made the same call. But a couple of things stand out about this decision. First, if Obama had any interest in convincing European allies to contribute more troops in Afghanistan, he would have attended the meeting--even if, as the Times notes, he generally feels no emotional connection to any European country. A potential subplot, though, can also be found in this report (FR) from LeMonde, which alleges that relations between Sarkozy and Obama have become "unhealthy." As he told Le Parisien one month ago, Sarkozy finds Obama lacking in leadership qualities. There is also this exchange at the Security Council last summer, in which Sarkozy accused Obama of going soft on Iran. As many have pointed out, the political situation on the home front is forcing Obama to shelve all foreign policy issues except Afghanistan and still-shaky arms negotiations with Russia. Obama remains very popular among European citizens, but it's difficult to see what concessions he's likely to get out of EU governments.

H1N1: Final Scores

As usual, the Swedes win, with nearly 60% of their population vaccinated against the virus.  Otherwise, embattled Health Secretary Kathleen Sibelius and doubly embattled Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will be pleased to know that many other countries botched (FR) their vaccine roll outs.  For France's part, the announcement by Roselyne Bachelot, the country's health minister, that the government was recalling 50m doses of vaccine has provoked outcry (FR) that tax dollars were wasted.  If this is any indication, Americans angry about the vaccine shortage may not have tolerated too much vaccine either.

Update: LeMonde diagnoses (FR) the situation more thoroughly (FR), blaming an aggressive policy by the state to minimize risks but that lacked a complementary media campaign exhorting citizens to get vaccinated.

Communism Was Just a Red Herring

It took me a while to understand this quip from the movie "Clue," but this story about Lech Walesa being accused of aiding Poland's Communist rulers illustrates the point. Most Poles, or at least ones younger than American Baby Boomers, have now completely moved on from obsessing over the crimes committed in Communist Poland, and in fact view this effort to out former collaborators as a witch hunt. While it does indeed seem as if Walesa was involved in assisting Communist authorities to a certain degree -- his quote in the story asking whether historians' efforts to tarnish his image "serves Poland" does seem suspect -- he was still undeniably the figurehead for the Solidarity movement that ended the repressive Jaruzelski regime.

As a History major I do agree that historically important individuals' lives must be shown completely, warts and all. Certainly, there is no tasteful way for Walesa to own up to this charge -- referring to the act of putting fellow citizens' lives at risk as a "youthful indiscretion" probably wouldn't work. But at the end of the day, it's the big picture that counts, and Poland would not be where it is today without the work of Lech Walesa.

Walesa is not the only prominent critic of Communism to have been accused of having collaborating with Communist authorities early in their careers. The Czech author Milan Kundera has also recently come under suspicion for having revealed the identity of a Western spy in his youth. The evidence here appears to be even flimsier, and a phalanx of renowned writers have come to his defense.

These countries will continue to struggle with their Communist pasts for at least another generation, but most of the populace will be content to simply note that the incident occurred and move on with their lives. In the cases of Walesa and Kundera, one could even ponder whether living with the guilt of their alleged actions led to their later roles as resistance fighters and reformers.