Word: pressingly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Paris meeting in March between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain resembled a warm embrace, Friday's hookup of Sarkozy and Barack Obama fell just short of hot love. After trading compliments and endearments during an hour-long press conference in the Elys?e Palace, the pair wound their session down with Sarkozy coming as close as possible to endorsing Obama for the U.S. presidency without actually doing...
...voters (some of whom have very little love of the French). He noted that if the White House were won by "another, France will be a friend to the United States" - a conciliatory move to McCain, his best friend from March. Yet Sarkozy's praise of Obama throughout the press conference made his admiration of the probable Democratic candidate more than obvious - including an apparent allusion to the older McCain. "We have the right to be interested in a candidate who is looking to the future, not backwards at the past," Sarkozy said of Obama's campaign...
...gathered international press corps should not have been too surprised by the virtual endorsement. On Friday morning, the conservative daily Le Figaro printed quotes from Sarkozy in which he boasts of having been the first European politician to meet and befriend Obama - and to predict the Illinois Senator's promising future. "Obama, he's my buddy," Le Figaro quoted Sarkozy as he referred to their 2006 meeting. "Contrary to my diplomatic advisers, I never thought Hillary Clinton had much of a chance. I always knew Obama would win the candidacy...
That enthusiasm for Obama resounded beyond the Elys?e, where the Senator's car was briefly blocked by a multinational crowd of supporters who spilled into the street, chanting his name. The French press and public were infected with the same Obama-mania that rocked Germany the day before - and that indeed has followed the Democratic candidate throughout his tour overseas. Sarkozy's evident support of Obama, meanwhile, mirrored the demonstratively warm reception the American has enjoyed from leaders and publics during his trip - which may help combat accusations from McCain that he's a virtual stranger to the world...
That kind of criticism may further be undermined by the manner in which Sarkozy described the converging views he and Obama exchanged during their t?te-?-t?te before meeting the press. The discussion ranged, they said, from Iraq to Iran, Afghanistan to Darfur, and issues like global warning to what Sarkozy called the "moralization of capitalism's financial markets." The men said they also agreed on the need to continue strengthening transatlantic relations and searching for multilateral solutions to global problems...