It's farewell to our great friend Bush

In his America, allegedly awash with racism, militarism and bitter religion, the white war hero with the evangelical running mate got creamed and the black man of letters got the presidency.

The greatest immediate international consequence of Barack Obama's election as president must be a reconsideration of the reflex anti-Americanism that forms the staple diet of intellectual life in many opinion-making corners of the world.

This should be an important change in global politics and it offers an Obama administration a unique moment of opportunity.

With a clear mandate of his own, a President Obama will also have fellow Democrats in control of Congress. This could be triumph, or tragedy, for the Democrats and for the US.

Controlling the executive and both legislative chambers can be politically dangerous -- just ask John Howard.

It has most often been this way in US history -- presidents get into trouble when their notional friends control the Congress.

There will be no political check or balance on the Democrats, no obdurate blocking opposition to stymie pet spending plans.

And there will be no one to share any of the blame when things go wrong, and expectations are not fulfilled.

Obama's first order of business will be confronting the global financial crisis. With a sympathetic legislature at his side, he has every tool an American president can have to deal with it.

For Australia, Obama is a very mixed bag.

Despite a couple of years in Indonesia as a kid, Obama has little knowledge of, or interest, in Asia. The Republicans are the party of the Pacific, the Democrats are the party of the Atlantic.

And as a nation we are just about to lose the best friend we ever had in the White House.

The world may hate George W. Bush, but by God he was a good friend to Australia. He did almost every single thing any Australian government ever asked of him, even up to calling for next week a summit of the G20, which includes Australia, to address the global financial crisis, at the urging of Kevin Rudd.

Don't expect Obama to be anywhere near as mindful of Australia or any of our concerns.

His Foreign Affairs article on his proposed foreign policy didn't mention Australia.

John McCain's did, more than once.

Canberra will need to earn whatever attention it gets in Washington under Obama. The new president will be the first post-Cold War leader. He has none of the mindset of the Cold War, with its emphasis on the Pacific alliance structure, and Australia's long history of military and political intimacy with the US.

We can expect Rudd will be his usual hyperactive self on the Australia-US relationship. And he will need to be.

The biggest, obvious danger of the Democrats' Washington hegemony would be a new burst of US protectionism.

Obama's positions on trade have been so contradictory and various that it's impossible to know which way he'll go. During the primaries he wanted to renegotiate America's free trade deals. During the election proper he was softer on this and said he was a free trader. But some influential Democrats have argued for a 25per cent tariff on Chinese exports and Obama has so far no record at all of opposing his party's more foolish positions.

Indeed, occasionally Obama himself has talked of imposing tariffs on China to coerce it into revaluing its currency.

Probably, cool good sense will prevail on this, as the US bureaucracy will advise a new Obama administration heavily against such moves.

And the most reassuring trait of Obama is his caution and opportunism.

But Obama's verbally excessive running mate, Joe Biden, got one thing right in one of his many off-message moments during the campaign. America's enemies will surely test a new Obama administration.

It will be in Australia's interests for Obama to pass the tests, whatever they might be, and for Australian voices to be heard in the Oval Office when the desperate hours come.

THE AUSTRALIAN POST