What would (the world) want?

From The New York Times: By Thomas L. Friedman

...when was the last time you saw a U.S. president or politician being held up as a role model abroad? It’s been awhile. And that got me thinking about Mr. Obama. It seems to me that the strongest case one could make for an Obama presidency right now is rarely articulated: it is his potential to repair the broken relationship between America and the world....

The Bush-Cheney team, by its own hand, has undermined its ability to talk about American principles in a way that foreigners will take seriously. They have moral clarity and no moral authority. ... It also lets the foreigners off the hook.

I think Mr. Obama has the potential to force a new discussion. For now at least, he has a certain moral authority because of his life story, which makes him harder to dismiss. And while he is a good talker, he strikes me as an even better listener. It’s amazing what people will let you say to them, if you just listen to them first....

Which brings me back to Mr. Obama. I believe that what has propelled his candidacy up to now — more than anything — is that many Americans have projected onto him their hunger for community, their hunger for a president with the voice, instincts and moral authority to make it so much harder for foreigners to be anti-American or for Americans to be anti-one-another.

Although American Presidents have more impact on the lives of millions of people around the world than their own national leaders, elected or otherwise, foreign nationals have no voice in the (s)election of the American President. And it's been a while since the respect of non-Americans has played any (positive?) role on the selection of an American leader. (Perhaps it made a marginal difference in the very close 1960 election of John F. Kennedy.) It will have an effect on my vote in the coming primaries, for precisely the reasons adduced by Friedman. Barack Obama has the unique background, standing, and persona that could reverse the precipitous decline in American standing around the world resulting from the calamitous policies of the current Administration.

Friedman gets this one right.