I wrote this last week, but other China diaries appeared, so I held it.  
With today's HuffPost article on worldwide opinion, I thought this would be a good time to send it.

Exactly one year ago this month,  I was on the train from Beijing to Tibet when a group of Chinese students approached me and asked to practice their English. This was not a surprise; it happens often, and as I had nowhere to go for the next forty-eight hours, I willingly agreed. What was a surprise was the first question they asked.
“Who are you going to vote for?”
Remember, this was last June, and the US primaries were still many months away.
“For what?” I asked.
“For President of the United States!” they inquired eagerly. Then they cut to the chase, to the question they were really asking, to the question they most wanted answered.
“Are you voting for Obama?”

I wish NASA would put John Bolton on the next MARS rocket ship project.  He could report on the plausibility of launching a pre-emptive strike against whatever life exists on the red planet.

[From the Frog Pond].

The Chicago Council of Global Affairs has done a study (.pdf) of world opinion (including American) about the United States role in foreign policy and the international order.  There are many interesting findings, but let's start with what they learned about American attitudes.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice confirmed Friday that President GW Bush authorized the arrest of the Iranians from their consulate in Irbil, linking it to an order issued several months ago to disrupt Iranian activities in Iraq.  You can read the whole story here:  http://www.nytimes.com/...

There can be no worse feeling for a man accustomed to the wielding of absolute power than to be faced with the awful truth that he has become irrelevant. President Bush is having just that moment today. Mark your calendars: today the world told the President, in no uncertain terms, that what he decides really doesn't matter anymore.

There are three major events that combine to demonstrate the lame duck status of President Bush on the international stage.

Form a V formation and follow me south for my take on Presidential relevancy on the world stage. **quack**

Democrats take Control The Hindu

...the U.S. electorate has demonstrated dramatically two years before the next presidential and congressional elections that it disapproves of his policies and performance. In fact, exit polls reveal that a majority of voters have regarded these elections essentially as a referendum on the Bush administration and its atrocious actions, notably its Iraq misadventure.

More below the fold...

US favorability fell by 18% in Spain and to (to!) 12% in Turkey. More people around the world see the US in Iraq as a greater threat to peace that Iran's nuclear 'ambitions' and in Russia that sentiment prevailed by two to one.

However the most horrifying thing in the entire article was this:

Only 75 percent of Americans had heard reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, while 90 percent of Western Europeans and Japanese had heard about them.