Europe Gives Obama a Standing Ovation

[jefferson_dem]

Obama in Europe: overtures to ovations
By Edward Luce

Published: April 3 2009 19:29 | Last updated: April 3 2009 19:29


Listening mode: Barack Obama takes a question at his closing press conference of the London summit

At the end of Barack Obama’s press conference following the Group of 20 summit on Thursday, a large crowd of journalists did something journalists never do: they gave a politician a standing ovation (this reporter stayed neutral). In a week that began with a flurry of meetings between the US president and his counterparts from China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, Britain and others, and ends with this Saturday’s Nato summit, the media’s uncharacteristic behaviour might easily be forgotten.

Yet it will linger precisely because it matched the response – to all appearances sincere, over and above the supplication shown towards any occupant of the White House – by the leaders of the countries from which the journalists had travelled. The same cerebral and low-key approach used by Mr Obama in dealings with fellow leaders came out in often lengthy, but nuanced, answers to questions. “He actually answered the questions he was asked,” says one startled Asian reporter.

Four days into Mr Obama’s first big foray on the global stage – and with another four days to go – he is being accorded high ratings from almost every quarter barring his conservative critics back home. In part, this comes because of the contrast Mr Obama strikes with the widely derided George W. Bush. Partly it has been prompted by the celebrity cult the new leader has generated back home. But most of all, it is about Mr Obama’s unusual approach to foreigners. “I have come to listen, not to lecture,” he said several times this week. Much of the time he appeared to mean it.

Perhaps the least expected endorsement came from Dimitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, who until he met Mr Obama had developed a taste for rubbing Americans up the wrong way. Having on Wednesday unexpectedly invited him to visit this July, observing that Moscow’s warm weather that month would reflect the new warmth in US-Russian relations, Mr Medvedev said: “After this meeting, I am far more optimistic about the successful development of our relations and would like to thank President Obama for this opportunity.”

That response was echoed across the board – from Manmohan Singh, India’s 76-year-old prime minister, who asked for Mr Obama’s autograph on behalf of his daughter, to Britain’s Gordon Brown, whose frosty encounter with Mr Obama in Washington last month is now forgotten. Strobe Talbott, a former deputy secretary of state, says the reaction owes much to the president’s recognition that the US now operates in a multipolar world. While that is obvious to most, his predecessor made no such acknowledgement.

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/52ad11a0-207b-11de-b930-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

[JayMusgrove]

1. Thanks for the nice article. n//t

[jefferson_dem]

2. ...in the ultra-conservative Financial Times even.

:)

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. We have a president that we can be proud of

it's been a long time!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Obama is setting exactly the right tone, I think

Listening and not lecturing. Respecting foreign leaders. Bush was a buffoon and hurt our country in many ways. I'm just glad the other nations are open minded enough to realize that Obama and his administration are a whole new ball game.

[LynnTheDem]

5. “He actually answered the questions he was asked,” says one startled Asian reporter.

Yeah, that still startles me, too.