Political leaders in the West?

Right now we have President Obama in the US and Chancellor Merkel in Europe. The leaders of the pack.

Obama have been criticized for being un-American and accused of not being legally American, growing up in Muslim Indonesia as he did. A US president have to have been born in the US. If it was to appease the Muslims, it apparently did not work. It is a funny rule because a person can be born in the US and raised in Venezuela. One of the ten casualties attacking Israelis on the Mavi Marmara recently was also born in the US but raised in Turkey.

However, Angela Merkel is born and raised, educated to a physicist, in East Germany. A country that was left of Lenin politically. Unlike in the US, they apparently don't have rules against people leading Germany being born and raised in foreign enemy land.

I am not claiming that the West's current ailments depend on its choice of leaders but it sure is a strange coincidence. Just now they are fighting about who has the right economics. Economics depend on psychology to a great extent and after the financial crisis, when US dominance is down, I guess we just have to accept that differences are going to shine through to a larger extent than before. World economics might be utopic.