No Obama T-Shirts

One of the things I wanted to get in Chicago was a Barack Obama T-shirt, and what better place than in his hometown? I saw some in a store window early in our 5-day stay and thought I could get some later without much difficulty. Boy, was I wrong. I never saw another one the rest of the trip.

They are being sold as fast as shops can get them in. What's surprising is who's buying them. The word is they are a very hot item with foreign tourists, who snatch them up as soon as they see them.

It's not hard to imagine the appeal Barack Obama has to a worldwide audience. He would be the first American President who looks like most of the rest of the world's people. He would be the first who does not have a name originating in the British Isles. He also contrasts with the current President and his presumed opponent on his willingness to at least try talking to adversaries and in his refraining from the language of threat and division in his approach to dealing with the world.

How refreshing it must seem to most of the world's people and governments that Americans might actually elect a leader who would cooperate on global environmental and population problems, who is not on a hair trigger to bomb or invade anyone who disagrees with him, who might finally set the ingenious Americans to developing alternatives to petroleum and who might even make it a priority for the US government to live up to the ideals that used to make the American system the marvel of the world.

And as far as the T-shirt goes, I was told I better order it online like most Americans do. The rest of the world isn't leaving us many on our store shelves. Maybe the Obama campaign can ship a few hundred million of them overseas in the next few months. That might be the way we finally turn this trade deficit around.