Columnist.
Do we care what the world thinks of us? Should we? A new survey of global opinion is getting the usual respectful attention. The Pew Global Attitudes Project surveyed people in 57 countries and found that President Obama's approval ratings have slipped a bit among Europeans, Latin Americans, and Asians -- though he remains quite a bit more popular than George W. Bush was in his final year in office. (Obama is far better liked abroad than he is at home.) Liberals tend to care a great deal about the way America is perceived globally and will doubtless be gratified that their pin-up continues to score well in Brussels and Timbuktu. They remind us that Thomas Jefferson himself bowed to a "decent respect for the opinions of mankind" when drafting the Declaration of Independence.
The effort to destroy the Jewish state has many fronts. One front is in Iran, where the maniacal regime that has repeatedly promised to "wipe Israel off the map" marches inexorably toward a nuclear bomb. Another is in Gaza, from which Hamas has lobbed 10,000 missiles into Israeli cities. Yet another front, the most insidious, is comprised of the propaganda arm of the Palestinian movement. And this front thrives for only one reason -- the complicity of the world press and the so-called "international community."
The Obama administration is deeply embarrassed by the legislators of Arizona. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, in discussions with representatives from China (China!), cited the Arizona law as evidence of human rights failures in the U.S. Doubling down, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley agreed that the law could pose a "fundamental challenge to human rights around the world." At a joint press conference with Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, who recently described the Arizona law as "violating the human rights of all people," President Obama delivered a message to "the American people and to the Mexican people" that his administration was taking a hard look at the "troubling" law.
When I was a little girl, at the height of the Cold War, I used to wish, deeply and fervently, that nuclear weapons had never been invented. An accompanying fantasy placed me at the center of world events. Just as the two superpowers were preparing to launch a devastating exchange of nuclear weapons, I would step between the two. Seeing an innocent child, the hard-boiled men of the world would soften and reconsider their terrible course. In other words, at the age of 7 or 8, I was a liberal. As I grew, I came to understand a) that it was not possible to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle, and b) that the way to safety lay not in arms control but in strength prudently pursued.
