Irish president’s kind words for Obama

Below is a partial transcript of remarks made by Irish President Mary McAleese during her Dec. 16 visit to The Times.

Marjorie Miller, L.A. Times: What kind of leadership is Europe looking for from President Obama on foreign affairs? And what do you think the costs -- he’s starting from the end of the Bush administration -- what are the costs of the Bush foreign policy that he is inheriting, and what principles should guide him going forward?

Mary McAleese: Gosh, I would be the last person, I have to say, to offer advice to President Obama, so I wouldn’t want to be seen as any way to be cheeky enough to offer him advice.

I know that what we’re hoping for in Europe -- he’s hit a pulse with Europe. I think a lot of people place huge hope in him, and I think that’s a very optimistic thing. And he manages to generate that kind of optimism, and I think that’s a very heartening thing. I think of people like my own son, for example, who’s in his 20s and is interested in politics but is completely electrified by Obama, electrified enough to come and canvass for him and to be here for the election even though he didn’t have a vote. I think that’s a remarkable phenomenon, and it’s a phenomenon that I hope will remain, that it will galvanize, that it will gather. We saw that when he visited Europe, when he visited Germany during his election campaign, the kind of reception that he got reminded me very much of the reception afforded way back to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, which I’m old enough to remember well.

And I think the world really needs that kind of message. We’re a bit lacking in optimism, to be perfectly frank…. And sentiment does matter, actually. We can see that in the -- we can see that even in the consumer markets, that human sentiment, this thing that you can’t generate with computers; it’s not amenable to some kind of injection. It’s a very real phenomenon.

He generates that, and I think that’s what Europe hopes for, that the traditionally strong relationship -- which is a familial relationship, a relationship of kith and kin -- between Europe and the United States will really be strengthened during Obama’s time in office. And that America will bring to the world a renewed message of hope, a renewed message of, I think of that sense of family, that sense of a common Earth family, which is working for one another, through one another, with one another, anxious to get to know one another, particularly to break down many of the barriers that have sort of solidified in recent times, that East-West barrier, that Christian-Muslim barrier, that them-and-us-ness, that I think all of us intuit is not good for the development of healthy relationships in the world.

And so we’re very proud of the fact that Barack Obama has Irish ancestry…. But I think what attracts us to him is also that Africa is in his DNA…. We have a long-standing involvement in the development of over 50 countries in Africa. Just from reading what he has written, he has an extraordinary and an intuitive and an insightful understanding of Africa that I think in many ways in unique to him and is not owned by an awful lot of leaders. He has that.

So I think he has that breadth, that internationalism that Irish people recognize instantly. We’re plugged into that same wavelength.

Miller: Is that enough to overcome the distrust of U.S. intentions not only after Iraq, but in all of the democracy building policies of the Bush administration?

McAleese: Only time, I suppose. I cannot possibly answer that; I cannot say the answer to that. But what I can say is that, speaking just from Ireland, we see an electrified sense of optimism, which he as a human being in his person has generated. I think that we bring to him phenomenal good will, and I think that he will experience huge goodwill from Europe and I think also huge goodwill from around the world. Insofar as I can read, our people are responding. This is a great resource, to be well used, and I don’t really have any doubt that he will use it well.