With Obama's Election There's a New Attitude Abroad: "It's cool to be an American again."

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Americans, Feeling the Love
With Obama's Election, Expatriates Say, There's a New Attitude Abroad. Instead of Challenges on Iraq and WMDs, They're Met With Hugs and Good Wishes.
By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 16, 2009; A12


At Madame Tussauds in Amsterdam, a waxen Barack Obama watches as a figure of George Bush is moved outside to the sidewalk. Workers added a set of packed bags. (Evert Elzinga/AP)

LONDON, Jan. 15

As Micha Wyatt plans an inaugural bash at the Chicago Rib Shack in London, she is basking in the new warmth toward Americans overseas. It's cool to be an American again, Wyatt said. "Finally! I'm tired of pretending I'm Canadian."

From Jakarta to Johannesburg, Americans who travel or live abroad are finding that instead of being scolded about the Iraq war, the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or U.S. climate change policy, they are being hugged when strangers hear their accent.

"People would question me: 'Where are the weapons of mass destruction? What is America doing?' " said Wyatt, 38, a San Francisco native who said she does not align herself with any party but comes from a Republican family. Since Barack Obama's election, she said, people want to hang out at American parties and talk about the latest news from Washington: "There is a buzz about America now."

Many Americans interviewed in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe said that for years they have felt "targeted" by critics of U.S. policies. They said they often did not volunteer that they were American, and several said they even dropped the word "Ottawa" into conversations to try to avoid confrontations. Now, even in countries such as Japan and Australia, where Americans were generally not taken to task over Bush policies as they were in Europe, Americans interviewed said they suddenly have new cachet. Some compared the feeling to the heady days after the fall of communism.

"It was cool to know an American" in the early 1990s, said Tanya Pampalone, a Los Angeles native who has long lived abroad and resides in Johannesburg. But the Bush era has been tough, she said, as many saw the United States playing the "bad guy" role in the world. She, like others interviewed, said she hesitated waving the red, white and blue in public. But as goodwill toward Americans has returned, she recently allowed her 5-year-old daughter to bring a little American flag she had been waving in the car to a restaurant.

"A week before, I would have said to her, 'Just put the flag in the car. Let's not draw attention to ourselves,' " Pampalone said. But this time, she told her daughter, " 'Great, take the flag,' and when she walked around saying, 'Yes, we can!' everyone in the restaurant was smiling.'"...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/15/AR2009011504008_pf.html

[TWiley]

1. Most of the worlds population is non-white

Most non-whites have been treated real bad by what may seems to be the "white guys" during the past 8 years of bushtapo terror.

I think the election of a non-white president speaks volumes to the worlds population; that maybe a majority of Americans really do want to run from what has happened the last 8 years.

[tilsammans]

2. Whew! So good . . .

It's been a long eight years, and it can't end soon enough.

:patriot: