Obama's 'rock star' persona boosts U.S.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's soaring popularity has significantly boosted attitudes toward the United States in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia, surveys in 24 countries by the Pew Research Center finds. But animosity toward the U.S. in some predominantly Muslim nations remains deep and strong.

Across much of the world, the first five months of Obama's presidency essentially erased the battering the USA's image took during eight years of the Bush administration, according to the study by Pew's Global Attitudes Project released Thursday.

"People were just really happy to see Bush gone," former secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Democrat who co-chairs the project, said at a breakfast for reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

Obama "is really a rock star as a politician," said John Danforth, the project's Republican co-chair who served as U.N. ambassador in Bush's administration. "But I guess my response is: So what? … How do you get from that to doing something?" He questioned whether nations would be any more willing to follow the U.S. lead on issues such as the war in Afghanistan or genocide in Darfur.

Whatever the impact on policy, there has been a transformation in views of the American president abroad. Confidence that Obama will "do the right thing in world affairs" was double that for Bush in China, triple in Japan and Mexico, quadruple in Jordan and Egypt. The contrast was even wider across Western Europe and in Turkey and Argentina. In France, 13% viewed Bush positively last year; now 91% express confidence in Obama.

Bush fared better than Obama in just one country surveyed. In Israel, 57% expressed confidence in Bush in 2007; 56 express confidence in Obama now. Obama's speech in Cairo last month aimed at the Muslim world increased the percentage of those in the Palestinian territories who said Obama "will consider our interests," but it eroded the number of Israelis who felt that way.

Attitudes toward the United States continued to be dismal in some predominantly Muslim countries. Just 14% of those surveyed in Turkey and 16% in Pakistan had a favorable opinion of the U.S.