How the World Fell Out of Love with Obama

What do they mean, "the world fell out of love with Obama"? Why do we keep hearing how his popularity in America is above 50%? Does the world see things about Obama that we cannot?

Politico
"In countries key to the president’s legacy, people express profound disappointment in a man from whom they expected great things."

. . . "But peace did not arrive in Obama’s time. Obama’s standing in much of the world seemed to sag each year as he struggled to fulfill his promises. America, after all, still has troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the Middle East, revolutionary movements, including ones Obama overtly backed, have largely fizzled or bred violent anarchy. And Russia has ignored Obama’s warnings and asserted its influence in former Soviet states, sometimes at the point of a gun. Many saw in this picture a naive president and a United States of diminished standing. In Jordan, confidence in Obama fell from 31 percent in 2009 to 14 percent last year, the Pew surveys show. Some 86 percent of Britons expressed confidence in Obama in 2009; in 2015, it was 76 percent. Even in Kenya, where Obama has family ties, confidence in him stood at 80 percent in 2015, down from the mid-90s his first two years. The numbers don’t suggest deep antipathy toward Obama, but the heady infatuation that accompanied his arrival in office has changed into pervasive disappointment."

A radio documentary of our interviews with dozens of citizens in those and other nations airs this weekend. In each country, we discovered a palpable sense of discontent with the now gray-haired American leader.