October 14, 2004

Rest of the World: "Americans Cool, But Bush Blows"

Except in Israel and Russia that is. Here's the type of global attitudinal polling you miss by exclusively reading U.S. media:

    Ten countries’ leading newspapers polled their own citizens in recent weeks to find out how they perceive America and Americans, who they support between John Kerry and George W. Bush, and their views on the war in Iraq.

    The 10 newspapers are Canada’s La Presse, France’s Le Monde, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, the United Kingdom’s The Guardian, Spain’s El Pais, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Melbourne Age of Australia, Russia’s Moscow News, Mexico’s Reforma, Israel’s Haaretz and the JoongAng Ilbo.

    The newspapers polled between 522 and 1,417 people in each country with identical questions. According to the JoongAng Ilbo’s survey, 65 percent of the 1,028 Koreans polled said they felt favorable toward Americans and 67 percent said it was important for the United States to play a leadership role on the world stage. But 72 percent of the respondents felt unfavorable toward George W. Bush.

    Negative attitudes towards Mr. Bush were common in all 10 countries except Israel: A majority of those surveyed in the other nine countries said they liked Americans and disliked Mr. Bush. In Israeli, 81 percent said they like Americans and 70 percent said they are pro-Bush. Anti-Bush feeling was highest in Spain (77%), followed by France (75%) and Korea (72%). All countries except Israel and Russia said they supported Mr. Kerry as the next U.S. president.

Spotted at The Marmot's Hole. And just to balance things out, here's the parallel contrarian piece that shows up in the Jerusalem Post.

Posted by thomas at October 14, 2004 04:33 PM | TrackBack