Europeans Still Heart Barack

Prez has a 77% approval rating on the continent; Bush was polling 19%

By Jason Farago, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 10, 2009 6:18 AM CDT

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Europeans Still Heart Barack — Climate activists dressed as Angela Merkel and Barack Obama pose in front of Brandenburg gate in Berlin, Germany, earlier this year. (AP Photo/Maya Hitij)

His approval numbers may have dipped at home, but in Europe Barack Obama is still a superstar, a new poll reveals. Fully 77% of Europeans approve of Obama's diplomacy—a record for an American president and far better than the 19% George Bush received a year ago. In Germany, Obama's rating is a stratospheric 92%. "This is a tsunami, a once-in-a-generation bounce in popularity," a pollster told the Wall Street Journal.

When asked about US foreign policy, Europeans voiced more skepticism. More than half want their countries to draw down in Afghanistan, while Obama has pledged to send at least 21,000 more troops there. And most are against Turkey's US-backed bid for EU membership; only 12% of French and 16% of Germans support the idea.
(More approval ratings stories.)

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