the rest of the world can see .. what the neo-cons and their fanboys refuse to? People aren't stupid. Invading sovereign countries, no matter if the dictator is a bad dude, is never a good idea. Especially when you handle it like Bush and Co. have done. Until the country as a whole regains its collective conscience, our standing won't resume the perch we used to sit atop.

We're screwed.

2 billion dollars in military aid to Egypt

8 billion dollars in direct military spending for S Korea (50% of the defense budget)

18 billion dollars spent in direct military spending in Germany

1 billion dollars a year in military aid credits/discounts to Saudi Arabia

400 million dollars a year in military aid to Jordan

400 million dollars a year in multipurpose aid to the PA (out of a total of 2.1 billion dollars per year from all sources)

2-4 billion dollars a year in indirect military protectionism for Taiwan (costs of maintaining a carrier group in the region)

~300 million dollars a year in military aid & spending for and in Yemen

Doesn't seem so blind, but then again, the Arab states are masters at shaping their message to sound like it's coming out of your mouth.

Can you please post some evidence that America was still highly regarded during the Vietnam era? Or ... during Reagan's Iran-Contra stuff? Or ... during Reagan's south American invasions? How do you know for certain that the goodwill towards America wasn't due to Clinton's popularity abroad? The data you posted is interesting, but only goes back to 2000. There is no doubt that Bush tanked our popularity abroad, and squandered the PR gift that was 9/11, but that does not rule out the possibility that global opinion of America fluctuates based on our foreign occupation de jour.

Left plainly wrong eh?

Can you please post some evidence that America was still highly regarded during the Vietnam era? Or ... during Reagan's Iran-Contra stuff? Or ... during Reagan's south American invasions? How do you know for certain that the goodwill towards America wasn't due to Clinton's popularity abroad?

None of that has anything to do with the point I made. If America was popular only due to Clinton, then that proves my point, not negates it -- prior to the Bush administration, America was not perceived as some sort of bullying, dangerous, imperialist force for evil. People around the world judgd America based on our counduct and that conduct has changed fundamentally.

I don't want to turn this into a "left-is-wrong" claim because, as I thought I was very careful to point out, most people on the "Left," at least as I use that term, don't hold the views I am critiquing, and, as always, these sorts of labels obfuscate rather than clarify.

There is a not insubstantial cluster of people who believe there is little difference between the Republicans and Democrats; that both are equally militaristic and imperial; that Clinton's bombing campaigns in Iraq and Yugoslavia were mere extensions of the Reagan militarism and what became Bush's militarism; and that it constitutes American "exceptionalism" to claim that America was previously respected as a force of Good in the world.

THAT is the viewpoint I am critiquing.

GW Bush was never actually elected by the American public. 2000 and 2004 were forms of a coup d'etat, 2000 by direct, corrupt action of the GOP and the SCOTUS, and 2004 by unethical and illegal voter suppression tactics in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere.

Our system is not necessarily broken, but it was hijacked by criminal elements in the GOP, who are still very much with us, and will continue to work to corrupt and ruin our system at every opportunity.

In short, our standing in the world is not the result of America turning into a quasi-fascist population, although, granted, some part of our population *is* just that.. No, our standing in the world is the result of a coup by elements of our society that would have been far smarter to stay behind the scenes. These elements have shown fairly clearly that brazen greed, corruption, and power-hunger don't play too well in the long run.

Whether or not we, as a society, can do something about these criminal elements, and their enablers, is a very real question, though, as crazy as that is.

Were our mass-media functioning as it was meant to do, this never would have happened, of course, but the big change is the corporate co-option of MSM. As Glenn has pointed out many times, this co-option is the fulcrum upon which we have swung dangerously close to our special American form of fascism. Can we swing back? You have to wonder.

The current republican administration has created a bloodbath in Iraq.

While the current crop of republican candidates for 2008 are debating whether evolution is true or not.

That a good chunk of the world can distinguish between America and the republican base.

This is once again a demonstration of the "both sides are just as bad" tactic that the right wing uses to leverage themselves into power. Since almost all the bad acts are on the side of the right wing and the conservatives, this general leveling works tremendously in their favor.

Sadly enough it works on too many voters that will make their decision on what bumper-sticker slogan they like best. You have to admit it is a masterful bit of marketing.

I wish all bloggers, great and small, would learn and apply the shades of meaning among "prove," "support, and "corroborate," on one side, and "disprove," "refute," and "rebut" on the other. The Pew polls don't "disprove" anything. As lawyers like to say, you can't prove a negative. Shame on you, Glenn. As a lawyer, you should be more respectful of "proof."

The polls do rebut certain notions, and provide useful and interesting information. Period.

The problem isn't only that I'm a language crank, although that is true, too. It's that this kind of solecism is another baby step down the propagandist path of the neocons and all the other cons down through the centuries. I starts with a transparent exaggeration ("I must have read a thousand stupid Freeper posts last night."), proceeds to a thoughtless white lie (such as trumpeting the lowest recent approval number (currently 28%) as if it were the average or consensus of many polls), and drifts to occasional, then habitual, torture of verbs like "disprove" in ways that bolster the point one is trying to make. In the distant limit, we reach the complete disconnect between words and concepts as practiced by Bush, Limbaugh, and such fiends.

We have the moral high ground in such matters. Let's don't squander it.