Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The Awesome Nuance of Europe

I earlier noted, after the 2008 election, that I was amazed that the nuanced and sophisticated Europeans would learn to love America again under President Obama even though his foreign policies would display amazing consistency on key issues that angered Europeans under the cowboy Bush:

The world will love us again, but the most significant difference leading to that will be "image and presentation." Ah, nuance! Tis a wonderful thing to have.

The Europeans continue to be distracted by the shiny object:

More than three-quarters of those polled in 11 European Union countries said they approve of Obama's handling of international policies, compared with just over half of Americans having that view. The annual survey was conducted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a nonpartisan policy institution that promotes trans-Atlantic cooperation, and the Compagnia di San Paolo, a research center in Turin, Italy.

The poll found that Europeans were not as enthusiastic about some of Obama's specific policies, with just under half approving the U.S. president's handling of Afghanistan and Iran.

Those Europeans sure are a sophisticated lot, eh? Nobody can get anything by them.

Apparently, our unpopularity pre-2009 in Europe had nothing to do with what we did. It was always about the Europeans and not what Bush did as president.