Obama Popular in Europe, but He’s Not Doing Much for U.S. Interests Abroad
Sally McNamara /
President Obama has lavished time and attention on Europe in spades. He made Europe his first foreign port of call after his inauguration and since then has visited at least eight European countries (plus Russia). His popularity ratings in most of Europe, especially in Western Europe, would make the average Hollywood A-lister blush. He has even been referred to in some quarters as “the first European President of America.”
And some in Europe – the utopian European elites and chattering intellectual classes of Brussels – are pretty pleased. President Obama immediately pledged to close Guantanamo. He decried America’s record on ‘torture.’ He reached out to the atomic ayatollahs of Iran. He apologized for America’s arrogance on French soil. And he’s prostrated himself before the sacrosanct United Nations.