File this in your “hmmmm” department:
People in Britain view the United States as a vulgar, crime-ridden society obsessed with money and led by an incompetent president whose Iraq policy is failing, according to a newspaper poll.
The United States is no longer a symbol of hope to Britain and the British no longer have confidence in their transatlantic cousins to lead global affairs, according to the poll published in The Daily Telegraph.
The YouGov poll found that 77 percent of respondents disagreed with the statement that the US is “a beacon of hope for the world”.
As Americans prepared to celebrate the 230th anniversary of their independence on Tuesday, the poll found that only 12 percent of Britons trust them to act wisely on the global stage. This is half the number who had faith in the Vietnam-scarred White House of 1975.
A massive 83 percent of those questioned said that the United States doesn’t care what the rest of the world thinks.
With much of the worst criticism aimed at the US adminstration, the poll showed that 70 percent of Britons like Americans a lot or a little.
President George W. Bush fared significantly worse, with just one percent rating him a “great leader” against 77 percent who deemed him a “pretty poor” or “terrible” leader.
At least we’ve made a strong impression…
Actually, this is one poll. As in the case of American political trends, you’d have to look at a batch of polls (and several done by this company) to really spot a pattern. But, unquestionably, the American image is not what is used to be abroad.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.