This is a brilliant article, but I have a couple of questions, not entirely rhetorical:
* Why is it that, when it comes to name the people lulling us to sleep, Bruce Bawer names three Englishmen (Judt, Garton-Ash, and the Archbishop of Canterbury), an American (Prestowitz), and a single continental European (a “Swedish government representative”)?
* Is Bawer unaware of the obvious contradiction between saying that Europe is rife with multiculturalism, and saying that the European elites seem to agree “that Europe is doing great — that it’s moving from strength to strength”?
It is also worth noting that no current or prospective European leader has yet been caught going to a church where the preacher has been known to scream “G*ddamn Europe” or “G*ddamn X” (where X is the preacher’s own country). But I would not be surprised if this were to happen in Britain or Sweden.
In spite of all this, I still agree on the main point, that Europe is in worse trouble than the US; and also that some of the European reactions to this trouble have unpleasant nationalistic overtones. Expect these reactions to become stronger and louder if Europeans decide that they cannot rely on America to defend them.
