Those of you, my gentle readers, who are frequent visitors will certainly have realised that the issue of the seeming “transatlantic rift” has received considerable attention in this blog. Now I just received an email from a very knowledgeable American friend telling me about his understanding thereof. And he comes up with a very good one-phrase summary of the issue, which I decided to share with you –

“I think the most accurate “truism” about transatlantic relations is that for Americans 9/11 changed the world, but for Europeans 9/11 changed America.”

Of course, the sentence contains a lot to argue with. But none the less, I think it does capture the current transatlantic climate as accurate as it is possible for a single sentence. Wise Words.