Respect for America on the Upswing

Winning tends to make you a lot of friends. This story is from the Australian:

...in a world supposedly awash in anti-US sentiment, pro-American
leaders keep winning elections. Germany's Angela Merkel is certainly more
pro-American than Gerhard Schroeder, whom she replaced. The same is true of
France's Nicolas Sarkozy.
More importantly in terms of Green's analysis, the
same is also true of South Korea's new President. Lee Myung-bak, elected in a
landslide in December, is vastly more pro-American than his predecessor, Roh
Moo-hyun.
Even in majority Islamic societies, their populations allegedly
radicalised and polarised by Bush's campaign in Iraq and the global war on
terror more generally, election results don't show any evidence of these trends.
In the most recent local elections in Indonesia, and in national elections in
Pakistan, the Islamist parties with anti-American rhetoric fared very poorly.
Similarly Kevin Rudd was elected as a very pro-American Labor leader, unlike
Mark Latham, with his traces of anti-Americanism, who was heavily defeated.

This was the reason Ronald Reagan and his successors had to work so hard to restore American power after the debacle that was the Vietnam War. Sadly, the Democrats have forgotten this hard won lesson.