Global Views of U.S. Helped by Obama, Survey Says

[TheCoxwain]

Source: New York Times

Europeans, in particular, seemed to be responding positively to Mr. Obama. The number of Britons saying that they trusted the American president to do the “right thing” in world affairs soared to 86 percent this year, under Mr. Obama, compared with just 16 percent last year, under President George W. Bush. The increase was slightly larger in both Germany and France.

The right thing numbers also jumped in all Middle Eastern countries surveyed — except Israel, which saw no statistical change.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/world/24survey.html?hp

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Conservatives will say this is a Bad thing .... I am sure

[liberal N proud]

1. So what does the right wing do?

They bitch about Obama traveling overseas too much.

I have heard several wingers tell me that he travels too much.

[tomm2thumbs]

2. lol - my mom says 'if he wants to get a hamburger, he should have one in the White House!'

I faced it long ago, it isn't about anything more than he isn't a Republican (and for some it is also that he is black) but it could be Hillary doing all this and they would be hating her as well. They are just livid and frustrated about the Democrats undoing their 8 year dream and anyone in there would be getting sh*t from them on EVERYTHING. The annoying part is they will never ever see how bad Bush was compared to things now until the end of the term is over and things are better. It is at that point that they will say 'Oh, but Bush signed the first stimulus'.

Gawd.

[timeforpeace]

3. As someone posted in the Dow thread, global views of the US don't pay the mortgage or put food

on the table.

[totodeinhere]

5. Not necessarily.

If the world regards us in a better light, then that might have a positive influence on our efforts to open foreign markets to American products which might translate into more American jobs.

[BlueSun]

4. Conservatives and Democrats

American Conservatives don't really exist anymore. Their movement has been co-opted by reactionary fringe right-wing wackaloons. They are unable or unwilling to accept any policy or opinion that diverges from their absolutist "revealed truth," and so attribute any disagreement either to some malevolent plot to destroy their values, or to the stupidity of dupes of this plot.

So, when in power, they will blindly follow their basically delusional ideology and, when it invariably shows results that are the opposite of what they predicted, blame the media, the liberals, and everybody else for 'distortion' and 'bias.' When the terrain begins to differ from the map, the extremist Republican leadership believes in the map unquestioningly - which explains why ever attempt to install Milton Friedmanite unregulated free markets and supply-side economics ends up with the true believers walking right off a cliff that wasn't on their self-delusional map.

When out of power, they see the proponents of differing policies and beliefs as a superhuman and implacable enemy, bent on destroying everything they hold dear and installing a Socialist or Communist dictatorship that will take all their guns and forbid them from worshiping their preferred deity under their favorite shamans. They live in terror - in a perceived state of perpetual apocalyptic warfare where they believe they represent all that is good and pure in mankind and those who disagree with them are malevolent, satanic, evil conspirators whose sole goal is to destroy them.

That explains why, when Republicans are in power, their governance is a failure due to their own ideological blindness that leads to misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance, and when Republicans are out of power, their ONLY concern is attempting to make their opponent's administration either fail (at the entire nation's expense), or at least make it impotent and ineffective.

Nowhere in their calculus is there any concern for the needs of their constituents, the welfare of the society at large, or the best interests of the outside world. Its just about cartoon caricatures of Good defeating Evil.

It is telling that the Republicans have focused on demonizing the word 'empathy' as some kind of undesirable bleeding-heart defect. Especially given that the classic definition of a sociopath and a psychopath is a person devoid of or incapable of empathy toward other human beings.

Republicans have no plans to improve any of our critical social, economic, and foreign policy crises - only plans to make Obama fail to solve them.

In their fevered and psychotic imaginations, they look at everybody from Republican moderates to mildly liberal Democrats (the only thing even remotely resembling a progressive Left in American politics) and see only Satan, Mao, and Stalin staring back at them.

As a group, they are suffering from institutional paranoia, and their transformation from a humorous, but generally ineffectual group of nutbags on the extreme fringe to the 'base' of the current Republican party has pretty much converted the GOP from a sometimes democratic party to a collection of escapees from the local acorn academy.

I hear that, should a Republican become president in 2012, he or she isn't going to redecorate the Oval Office, just pad the walls.

[tanyev]

6. Wow, you know how to make an entrance!

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[Amonester]

7. Yep. There just aren't enough mental institutions to accomode them all.

Too bad, they really would need them.

That's the only empathy the leftie-in-me feels for them!

:hi:

[Truth Talks]

8. Boomerang

I hate to play the cynic, but I predict those numbers are going back down in the not too distant future. We're still occupying Iraq, and Obama is actually escalating the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That, by itself, is obscene.

Are relations with Latin America haven't really changed. The U.S. is sending more troops into Colombia, and it's widely believed that we're behind the military coup in Honduras. Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) and Evo Morales (Bolivia) certainly aren't enamored of Obama.

Where the global economy is headed is anyone's guess, but it seems to be pointed downwards for the rest of this year at least.

I think the key words here is HOPE. After eight years of George W. Bush, the world is desperately hoping for a change agent. If they perceive that Obama is just another corporate gatekeeper, world opinion could hit a new low. Pardon the arrogance, but I predict that these feelgood polls are going to head south if we don't see some REAL, substantial changes before the end of the year.