Vive la Obama différence!

Fleming finds it ironic that Western Europe tends to love Obama. "He's someone who they alternately refer to as a black or métis [mixed-raced] politician, but they don't know what to do with their own minorities."

Other instances of French projection onto Obama are less problematic. Retired Time journalist Don Morrison, who has lived in Paris the past few years, and in 2007 penned a controversial cover story for Time's European edition called "The Death of French Culture," thinks that for the French, comparisons between Kennedy and Obama go deeper than mere style. "More than perhaps any other country, France likes its politicians to be smart. Not just street-smart but book-smart. You can't get to high office here without having written a few books. And not just earnest tomes on public policy. French politicians crank out biographies, histories and books of poetry. A French literary magazine the other day asked me what I thought of a French presidential candidate's comments about a recent historical novel. Only in France do presidential candidates consider themselves literary critics."

"I think," Morrison says, "that's why the French love Obama. He comes across as somebody who has written a few good books and, more than McCain and certainly more than Bush, isn't afraid to be thought of as somebody who reads ... This is a country that takes culture seriously. [Obama] appears to the French to be somebody who values intelligence, education and culture. That makes him one of those idealized Americans that the French have always treasured, the ones who share the Enlightenment values that France did much to invent."

Americans in Paris recognize, however, that their countrymen back home may not share the attitudes of their French neighbors. American Parisian John Morris, 91, was the photo editor for Life magazine and Robert Capa's editor on D-Day. Morris has lived in Paris for 25 years. For the past year and a half, he's been actively involved in the Obama campaign. An Obama MeetUp group that now numbers almost 400 people -- mostly Americans, but also French and other nationalities -- meets monthly in Morris' apartment. "If the election were held here," Morris said, "Obama would win hands down. [But] the average Frenchman is more knowledgeable about the world than the average American. It's sad."

The irony is that in these days of intense globalization, when the world is becoming a smaller and smaller place, Americans are in some ways becoming more insulated. Foreign news is becoming less interesting to them. As Richard Pérez-Peña reported earlier this week in the New York Times, a study by the Pew Research Center shows that almost two-thirds of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did just three years ago, nearly as many print less national news, and despite new demands on newsrooms like blogs and video, most of them have smaller news staffs.

Yet at least one very important impression from the outside world is getting through. According to another Pew Research Center report, more Americans now say that the United States is less respected in the world than it has been in the past, and a growing proportion views this as a major problem for the country. More than 7 in 10 Americans (71 percent) say that the United States is less respected by other countries these days, up from 65 percent in August 2006.

For the first time since Pew began asking this question in 2004, a majority of Americans now see the loss of international respect for the United States as a major problem. The percentage of Americans saying the loss of international respect is a major problem has risen from 43 percent in 2005 to 48 percent in 2006 and 56 percent currently.

Perhaps that will partially relieve any trepidation in the Obama campaign about too many Paris photo ops, or of Obama being "too popular" in Europe. It is certainly good news for Americans who live abroad and who long to see America's reputation restored.

And whether or not Obama reaches the White House, his very candidacy is good news for those who want to improve America's image in Europe. As Obama's brief stopover in Paris approached, Solvit was feeling excited that he would be one of the privileged few to see his hero in the flesh. He had received an invitation to attend Obama's Friday evening joint press conference with President Sarkozy. "In France, everyone, of all ages, are for Obama," Solvit says. "Elite or non-elite, black or white, politically interested or not, people of all different backgrounds. For young people, it's a new way of speaking of world involvement and politics. It's a new American dream."

"You American people, it's your future," he says. "But it's also our future."

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