Everyone REALLY Loves Barack!

As I noted the other night, polls show that everyone on the planet, and probably some from other planets, LOVE Barack Obama. Today I came across this little website, dedicated to the proposition that everyone else on earth needs to tell people like me to vote for Obama.

It is pretty funny. But as John Derbyshire pointed out on his "Derb Radio" podcast today, what does it really mean? For example, polls in Russia show that Russians love Vlad Putin, yet also want Barack Obama. How do you reconcile the two?

I think people are more into the IDEA of Obama than Obama himself. He is the cool, post modern candidate. As for American foreign policy, will it really change all that much? Given the incestuousness and lack of imagination among our foreign policy elites, I doubt it. The difference may be one of tone, but not really substance. Obama will use multilateral cover a little more than Bush has, and an Obama foreign policy will be more aggressively anti-Russian than Bush's, but in the end, I doubt much will change.

So why do I see McCain as better than Obama in this regard? My big concern about Obama is the same that I had about Bush 8 years ago -- seriousness. I also worry that Obama will try and prove he is a tough guy. John McCain has nothing to prove on that score. Obama may feel like he has. And considering the Messianic overtones of his campaign, I worry that he will react to any attack on US interests not as an attack on US interests, but as an attack on him personally. Presidents should never take anything personally -- that may be how we got into Iraq in the first place.