NBC: 'If World Had a Vote, Barack Obama Would Win in a Landslide'

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Friday's NBC Nightly News devoted a story to how around the world “people want to turn a page on the Bush years” and, as if it's relevant, “if the world had a vote, Barack Obama would win in a landslide.” A suggestion to viewers on what they must do to restore America's honor? Reporter Dawna Friesen warned that the next President “faces a grim reality: Much of the world deeply distrusts, even dislikes, the United States” and she rued “much of the sympathy and solidarity that existed after 9/11 evaporated during the Bush years.”  

Pointing to Iraq as the primary culprit (“so many believed it was invaded on false pretenses”), Friesen also highlighted “other reasons,” such as how “after Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. is perceived by many as a violator rather than an upholder of human rights” and “America is seen contributing, but not doing much to solve, global warming.” From Istanbul, she concluded:

Here in Turkey, as in much of the world, people want to turn a page on the Bush years. In fact, polls show the image of the U.S. has improved slightly this year simply because President Bush is leaving. And, that if the world had a vote, Barack Obama would win in a landslide. Regardless of who wins, the world is clamoring for a new America in 2009.

The story on the Friday, October 17 NBC Nightly News:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: We're back now with our In Depth report tonight. As election day approaches we've been talking here recently about the hot spots around the world that will be crowding the next President's agenda. Fact is, the U.S. is on the world's agenda as well and our 44th President will have a lot of work to do. Our report on this tonight from NBC's Dawna Friesen.
 
DAWNA FRIESEN: The next President, whoever he is, faces a grim reality: Much of the world deeply distrusts, even dislikes, the United States. In France, these bloggers say the world is hungry for change.

MOHAMED HAMIDI, BONDY BLOG EDITOR: The President of the United States is not the President of the world.

FRIESEN: Nicole Bacharan is a respected French political analyst who used to live in the U.S.

NICOLE BACHARAN: There's a lot of hostility, the sense that Americans are, or the government at least is arrogant, aggressive. And a danger, basically, for the rest of the world.

FRIESEN: Much of the sympathy and solidarity that existed after 9/11 evaporated during the Bush years, especially in the Muslim world. A recent Pew poll found only 37 percent of Indonesians, 22 percent of Egyptians and 19 percent of Pakistanis had a positive opinion of the U.S. Even among traditional western European allies, approval is low: 31 percent in Germany, 33 percent in Spain, 42 percent in France.

RICHARD WIKE, PEW GLOBAL ATTITUDES PROJECT: A big part of the story is certainly opposition to American foreign policy. First and foremost, it's Iraq.

FRIESEN: Iraq, not only because so many believed it was invaded on false pretenses, but because the U.S. did it despite so many countries' objections.

WIKE: There is sort of a general perception that the U.S. acts unilaterally in world affairs.

FRIESEN: Other reasons: After Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. is perceived by many as a violator rather than an upholder of human rights. America is seen contributing, but not doing much to solve, global warming. And it's viewed by many as having triggered the current economic meltdown. Nowhere is America's image worse than in Turkey. Polls show 70 percent of people here see the U.S. more as an enemy than a friend, despite Turkey being a NATO ally and a partner in the war on terror.

ERSKIN KALAYCIOGLU, SABANCI UNIVERSITY: Politically speaking, the U.S. is considered to be a bull in a china shop.

FRIESEN: But American culture and its people are still embraced.

YASEMIN CONGAR, COLUMNIST: They still see the good side of America, the mobility, the change, the dynamism, the openness to the world.

FRIESEN: Here in Turkey, as in much of the world, people want to turn a page on the Bush years. In fact, polls show the image of the U.S. has improved slightly this year simply because President Bush is leaving. And, that if the world had a vote, Barack Obama would win in a landslide. Regardless of who wins, the world is clamoring for a new America in 2009. Dawna Friesen, NBC News, Istanbul.