The US has lost so much good will around the world as a reuslt of Dumbya's arrogance, duplicitousness, laziness and stupidity. But I think the USA could turn it all around, if it chooses to elect a leader with a bit of sophisitication, intelligence and sensitivity. Case in point: In Davos just a few days ago, Bill Clinton had the Europeans eating out of the palm of his hand - and all he had to do was speak a little bit of sense. 
Clinton made some interesting observations on climate change, US foreign policy and Iran.
Article
January 28, 2006, DAVOS, Switzerland -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton told corporate chieftains and political bigwigs Saturday that climate change was the world's biggest problem - followed by global inequality and the "apparently irreconcilable" religious and cultural differences behind terrorism.
"First, I worry about climate change," Clinton said in an onstage conversation with the founder of the World Economic Forum. "It's the only thing that I believe has the power to fundamentally end the march of civilization as we know it, and make a lot of the other efforts that we're making irrelevant and impossible."
snip
Clinton won frequent enthusiastic applause - not a common situation at the annual gathering in the Swiss Alps - for articulating a global vision more conciliatory and inclusive than the one many of the assembled tend to associate with U.S. politics.
People around the world "basically want to know that we're on their side, that we wish them well, that we want the best for them, that we're pulling for them," he said.
Clinton called on current world leaders to seek ways of easing the "apparently irreconcilable religious and cultural differences in the world, that are manifest most stunningly in headlines about terrorist actions but really go far beyond that."
"You really can't have a global economy or a global society or a global approach to health and other things unless there is some sense of global community."
snip
Iran, he argued, must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, and neither economic sanctions nor "any other option" should be ruled out as ways of preventing this. But he warned there would be "an enormous political price to pay if the global community ... looked like they went to force before everything else has been exhausted."
Clinton made some interesting observations on climate change, US foreign policy and Iran.Article
January 28, 2006, DAVOS, Switzerland -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton told corporate chieftains and political bigwigs Saturday that climate change was the world's biggest problem - followed by global inequality and the "apparently irreconcilable" religious and cultural differences behind terrorism.
"First, I worry about climate change," Clinton said in an onstage conversation with the founder of the World Economic Forum. "It's the only thing that I believe has the power to fundamentally end the march of civilization as we know it, and make a lot of the other efforts that we're making irrelevant and impossible."
snip
Clinton won frequent enthusiastic applause - not a common situation at the annual gathering in the Swiss Alps - for articulating a global vision more conciliatory and inclusive than the one many of the assembled tend to associate with U.S. politics.
People around the world "basically want to know that we're on their side, that we wish them well, that we want the best for them, that we're pulling for them," he said.
Clinton called on current world leaders to seek ways of easing the "apparently irreconcilable religious and cultural differences in the world, that are manifest most stunningly in headlines about terrorist actions but really go far beyond that."
"You really can't have a global economy or a global society or a global approach to health and other things unless there is some sense of global community."
snip
Iran, he argued, must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, and neither economic sanctions nor "any other option" should be ruled out as ways of preventing this. But he warned there would be "an enormous political price to pay if the global community ... looked like they went to force before everything else has been exhausted."
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