Handily Erasing George Bush

This caption translation from the Stern website is sort of a mess, but you get the message:

It is this ease and courtesy with which the young U.S. president to open the human heart: Barack Obama welcomed the security guard with a handshake, while he and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown enters the seat of government.

This reminds me of numerous images I’ve seen in the domestic press showing Obama warmly acknowledging African-American attendants at the White House. The reaching out from England’s gates of power and the face of warm reciprocation speaks to Obama’s humility, a trait which seems to have largely rinsed Europe of the Bush toxicity in all of one week.

(image: Toby Melville/Reuters. April 1, 2009. caption: President Barack Obama shakes hands with a British police officer outside 10 Downing Street, as world leaders gathered in London for the G20 summit)