Bush Myth 3.0: Bush destroyed world opinion of the United States

I have heard members of the administration say that one of the accomplishments of the Obama administration is that they have restored our “standing in the world.”  As it was being alleged by Democrats and the predominant news media that world public opinion had turned against us because of Bush policies, I wondered several things.  How do they know this?  How do they measure it?  When this topic emerges, why do media pundits simply accept the premise without asking for evidence?

 

Mostly, I ask why do we care about world public opinion anyway?  We know that public opinion is a function of the type and volume of media messages being blasted at the public.  Public opinion is malleable; it can be shaped and manipulated by the information that is given to the public.  As the press in the United States decided to pummel the Bush administration on every level and as the Bush administration elected not to engage in the public relations wars, wouldn’t it make sense that these incessant negative messages would eventually have a negative affect? 

 

Have you ever known people who are “approval-seekers”?  They are so concerned with what others think of them that their lives become controlled by those they seek to impress.  Approval seekers are constantly stressed by the need to understand what will make others like them.  This leads them to cultivate their image and they become image focused.  The value of intellectual substance and ideas become secondary in importance to one’s image.  Approval-seekers are less productive than self-confident people who satisfy their approval needs by staying true to their own ideals.  By staying honest with themselves and meeting their commitments (to others and to themselves), they develop confidence in their own worth and pursue goals that benefit us all.

 

Just as Chris Matthews felt a  "thrill going up my leg"when Obama spoke and as David Brooksconfessed his first encounter with Barack Obama: “I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant,” Brooks says, “and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.” – our media is Image-Obsessed.  As so, it seems, is the Democrat Party.

 

Just for kicks, I decided to look up some information about world public opinion.  It seems that the Pew research organizations have a modicum of credibility, so I reviewed the results of some studies they have conducted going back to 2003 and through 2009. These studies ask several questions of people around the world, but not the same countries are surveyed each year and the methodology is questionable, but it is the closest thing I can find to a measure of public opinion.  The following is a chart I developed by using the data from the survey, which is available via the link below.

 
Selecting the question assessing the the percent of respondents with a favorable view of American people, I discovered that the average world opinion was higher at the start of the Bush administration (66%) than it was at the start of the Obama administration (59%), in spite of the Obama hype, peace prize and the apology tour.  Even during the very tough Bush years of 2003, 2005 and 2007, the average favorable score was about 57-58%. 

 

Interestingly, of the people surveyed in the United States, 88% had a favorable view of “themselves” in 2008 (12% had a negative view).  In 2009, the favorable score imrpoved only 2 percentage points to 90%.  I noted that Kenya showed up with the next most favorable view at 87% in 2009.  I thought that this might be because of Obama’s ancestral connection (father), but then I noted that the last time Kenya was surveyed (2007) the favorable average was 86%, which was a Bush year.

 

Take a look at the United Nations.  With the exception of some humanitarian projects, the activities of the UN are ludicrous and laughable.  We fund a big permanent get-together of all the nations of the world, most of which are not democracies, who come to effect transfers of wealth from productive people of the world to the unproductive.  Most of these nations find benefit in blaming the United States for all the world’s problems because they have discovered how to harvest our weak spot – Guilt.  Guilt is an emotion felt by those who are image-centric and lack self confidence in their own goodness and worth.  

 

World public opinion is a worthless topic.  It can be manipulated and one can find or make up statistics to make any point they want.  We need to build national self confidence by being true to our founding principals and our most fundamental law – the constitution.  We need to be honest with ourselves and meet the commitments we make to ourselves and to others.  This will help us to like ourselves again and our need to please all the other nations of the world will vanish in a flash.

 

Pray for us, we are off the rails and we need to work together to lift the locomotive back on the track.  Oh, let’s also remember to point it in the right direction.  And...lets put the people, not the government, at the controls.

 

George