SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: German commentators served up a mixture of glee and caution on Thursday as newspapers published their first editorials reacting to Barack Obama's historic victory over Republican rival John McCain.
Say what you will about press bias in the United States. No one in Germany ever felt the need to pretend: Like elsewhere in Europe, the media here was always in the bag for Barack Obama.
Now that their "smart," "attractive," "cosmopolitan" darling has made history by becoming the first African-American to win the White House, German opinion-makers are trying to strike a balance between pure celebration and sober-minded reflection.
After eight years of strained, if not chilly, relations between Washington and Berlin, the German media sees Obama's election as an opportunity to repair America's image and re-establish the US as a role model for the world.
But after the obligatory tributes to the enormity of the event, editorial-writers were quick to fall back into the more familiar German mode of compiling caveats: expectations are too high; Americans are still war mongers; Europe will not be able to rise to the occasion; the challenges facing the president-elect are simply too great.
Editorialists allowed themselves three paragraphs of drunken jubilation. Then it was back to German sobriety. >>> Christopher Glazek | November 6, 2008
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