THE WASHINGTON POST: OBAMA PROTRAYS ANOTHER SIDE OF U.S.

Throughout his trip abroad, Obama portrayed a proud but flawed United States, using a refrain of humility and partnership in an attempt to rally allies around such issues of mutual concern as the global economy, climate change and nuclear proliferation. He talked about the nation’s “darker periods” of slavery and repression of Native Americans, and its past sanction of torture that he has ended. He also spoke with pride about the United States’ diversity and its central role in rebuilding post-World War II Europe, while condemning “anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious.”

 Obama was unable to persuade European allies to increase fiscal stimulus spending or to send additional combat troops to Afghanistan for long-term deployments; however he used his time in Istanbul on Tuesday to reach across cultural barriers — meeting with Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders, slipping off his shoes to tour a 400-year-old mosque and urging an audience of university students to “build new bridges instead of new walls” throughout the world.

Emre Erdogan, head of the Turkish research firm Infakto, said Obama’s message is resonating with Turkish youth.

“Turkish young people are not optimistic about their lives,” he said. “They are looking for a sense of confidence and security in their lives. Obama gives them hope.”

Question to the Blogosphere:  Was Obama able to bring the countries of the world, especially the Middle East, closer to the United States?  For example, will the new American attitude towards Turkey–as a partner and not a “model Muslim nation”–increase the possibility that the U.S. will be able to have leverage in the Middle East?  Do you think that Obama’s trip abroad was more about style and less about substance, as Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute claims?  Is the fact that the world has so much hope invested in Obama common ground among nations in and of itself?  What is the balance between acknowledging flaws to build common ground between nations and maintaining national security?