Obama- Winning the Hearts and Minds Abroad?

This is an editorial from TimesOnline, a major UK newspaper. Read the whole thing, it's hillarious, but here's a little bit:

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

Occasionally a US magazine like GQ might run a mini-feature on how Sarkozy is the most "American" French president (and how that's not true- if he were American he wouldn't dress so well), but we don't generally openly criticize foreign leaders here. And yet, abroad, you'll find things like the Monica brand condoms that were sold when the Clinton debacle went down, the "polluter" quote from Bush at the G-8 summit, and this little gem. Making fun of Americans is world-wide sport, much like we make fun of Canadians. Obama is not going to change this.

As Maureen Dowd points out, no one in America is allowed to make fun of Obama, but it seems they don't have any trouble doing it abroad. He's not even elected yet, but the international media is already not taking him seriously. Somehow I doubt he'd have all that influence abroad the liberals are so crazy about.