Has Obama changed America's standing in the world?

[tooblue]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15586726

"The effort to use American soft power resolved itself pretty quickly into an effort to use Barack Obama. The soft power was 'me'. 'Here I am, I am something new.' That didn't do it. It didn't change the way people reacted to the United States.

"He damaged early on the relationship with Britain. No particularly close relationship with France. Or Germany. Or Mexico. The re-set with Russia has not paid off. Not a lot has been achieved."

But this is nuts and bolts. The more serious claim is that from hesitating over the Arab Spring to a planned speedy withdrawal from Afghanistan; from re-setting relations with Russia to seceding to Europe the most prominent role in Libya, President Obama has presided over a decline in America's role.

[edward777]

Why are you reading the British press? Isn't the mainstream infotainment of the US networks good enough for you? While you are getting deeper analysis than one would ever get about US politics from the US media how are you going to keep up on Charlie Sheen's girlfriends, or if Lindsey Lohan is wearing a bra this weekend or not? How can you call yourself a good American?

[oxcoug]

Why are you reading the British press? Isn't the mainstream infotainment of the US networks good enough for you? While you are getting deeper analysis than one would ever get about US politics from the US media how are you going to keep up on Charlie Sheen's girlfriends, or if Lindsey Lohan is wearing a bra this weekend or not? How can you call yourself a good American?

Never fear, the British press covers all of those subjects adequately as well - perhaps even better. The Daily Mail and the Sun aren't doing much editorializing on our Afghanistan policy.

Actually - just as sort of an aside in this thread - I'd say that the American print media is slightly less prone to sensationalizing than the British media. I think that the top American papers of record - the WSJ, the NYT and WashPo - compare favorably to The Times of London, the Guardian and the Telegraph.

I think once you get into the second layer of non-TV American news and analysis that we have some really solid stuff going with Slate, Foreign Policy and regional reporting destination sites like the Tennessean and the LAT are also pretty good.

Where I can go along w/ you is on TV news - Fox and MSNBC are both total infotainment. But the fact that the BBC tends to be very serious doesn't mean it's any less prone to bias - in fact, its bias is so well-established that it's difficult to take the organization seriously.

In fact they concluded in an internal report that their reporting showed a "left-wing" bias and a "anti-Christian sentiment."

More recently they've made mind-blowing hires and promotions like this one

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/t...list-past.html

Their treatment of the Middle East tends to be laughably, almost amateurishly biased. Their 2011 docu on Jerusalem was one long anti-Israeli hit piece.

Anyway... British press isn't necessarily more reliable than American press. Sorry about the lengthy response to what I'm sure was an offhand comment.

[UtahDan]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15586726

I genuinely have no sense of how he has affected our standing. I have always know this, however: every state uses whatever resources and capabilities it has available to advance its interests. The complaints about American unilaterism and use of power have never been about tone, presentation or playing nice with others. They have been about the bare fact that America acting in spite of attempts by other states to influence it to act in some other way not only weakens them, but highlights the imbalance of power. And so they argue that there is something not right or fair about America's "tone" and get Americans to buy it which translates into a less proactive America which=larger role for those states.

Look at the French role in Libya (remember how vigorously they opposed our efforts in other places?). When they got a shot to add to their prestige and regional influence they did it.

Anyway, those are not arguments about the rightness or wrongness of anything the US has done. I'm just highlighting that no one has ever cared about the way in which we go about things. They only care about how we exercise our power and their ability to influence it. Anyone hoping that putting a different face on it was suddenly going to sway anyone didn't understand the fundamentals of how international relations truly work, IMO.