At least according to this study.
Keep in mind this finding pre-dates President Barrack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize award.
The National Brands Index rates countries based on a 20 nation survey of people who rate states on the following categories:
Exports, Governance, Culture, People, Tourism and Immigration/Investment.
NBI’s founder had, in part, this to say on America’s remarkable turn around from seventh to first in a mere 365 days:
Despite recent economic turmoil, the U.S. actually gained significant ground. The results suggest that the new U.S. administration has been well received abroad and the American electorate’s decision to vote in President Obama has given the United States the status of the world’s most admired country.
While I hold a similar degree of derision found in both a recent post and most of the commentary regarding Oslo’s seemingly bandwagon award to the President of the Nobel Peace Prize, I also look beyond and consider the benefits this planetary goodwill might entail. The President will eventually have to make choices that, in short, piss off these same people and more. The global goodwill afforded to him now (despite his flagging domestic poll numbers) will prove a boon then even as it proves a matter of ridicule now. Unlike the previous administration (or previous administrations back to John Adams,) any consternation on the part of state leaders regarding President Obama will, hence forth, be measured against a most unusual dictate. A Presidential legacy that precedes an actual Presidency.
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Comments to this entry
Curzon
October 11, 2009
6:38 am
Did Obama Win The Nobel Peace Prize For Sponsoring Infanticide In His First 10 Days? | Gadget Look
October 11, 2009
7:19 am
Sejo
October 11, 2009
11:02 am
M-Bone
October 11, 2009
2:18 pm
Oliver
October 11, 2009
2:19 pm
Don
October 12, 2009
1:28 pm
This toss-away (and wryly intended) line is actually the most insightful comment in your post. It points to a key aspect not only of Obama's candidacy & thus far presidency but an increasingly dominant feature of broader geopolitical events: a collective, powerful and perhaps irresistible wish to put ends ahead of means, leapfrog our discomforting historical moment and move the world forward by enticement or by force to its imagined destination.
Visions abound, utopian and otherwise, and the “Shapers of History” are everywhere in evidence. It speaks to a collective exhaustion with old formulations and dusty narratives that have yet – at this late historical hour – to bring the world home to itself, wherever that might be imagined. It speaks to a growing fear that home may not be what or where the myth-makers and their subscribers thought it was and that, to get there at all, we cannot now afford to hesitate a moment longer.
This self-perpetuating, self-reinforcing rush to “get there” increases the dangers of our moment; it risks unleashing that last of the self-made conundrums locked inside the heart of every ideological fantasy: the self-fulfilling prophesy by which the enemy that threatens becomes the enemy that must be destroyed. It is in this way that legacy always precedes the actual and history shows itself to be not a linear progression but a feed-back loop. Time does not move behind a carrot or ahead of a stick; it unfolds, relentlessly, unimaginably, and at its own pace. It’s the manner in which we step through our moment that will determine both destination and destiny.
Munro Ferguson
October 13, 2009
12:29 am
Oliver, good point. I'd add that it'll be a bit ironic if shortly after the President wins the Nobel Peace prize he commits more US forces to Afghanistan and escalates a war...
Don, it wasn't a "toss away line," nor was it intended to be "wry." Quite the contrary, it was purposeful lacking the sarcastic inflection you've read. Thanks for the eloquent (if a bit vague) comment, especially this bit:
"Time does not move behind a carrot or ahead of a stick; it unfolds, relentlessly, unimaginably, and at its own pace."