Well, despite being told that it was important for the world needed to like us, an op ed in the NY Times suggests that we now ignore being popular with the world community...........
To be sure, opinion toward the United States today is not overwhelmingly negative, thanks to widespread approval of President Obama. A recent survey from the German Marshall Fund suggested that positive opinion of the United States had skyrocketed in Europe. Likewise, a Pew survey showed that approval of America has jumped to 75 percent in France and 69 percent in Britain. But the comparable figures were 63 percent and 75 percent, respectively, in the second year of George W. Bush’s administration, and we all know where the numbers went from there. It merely may be that new American presidents tend to enjoy a honeymoon in foreign opinion.
Given these mixed signals, which surveys should President Obama pay attention to — the ones that suggest approval of his leadership or the more negative appraisals? The answer is neither. His only concern should be whether favorable public opinion abroad will help him achieve America’s own goals, and there is little evidence that that is the case.
Rather, history suggests that there is only one sure way for President Obama to ensure the popularity of the United States abroad: reduce the power of the United States or simply don’t exercise it — either militarily, economically or even diplomatically. The world simply distrusts the big guy on the block, and the only way to address this is to stop behaving like a superpower. A much better option, of course, would be to pay less attention to foreign opinion surveys and more to our own ideals and interests.
I think he's doing both.
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