Top White House adviser David Axelrod on Monday said that President Obama's trips to Europe, Turkey and Latin America in the last three weeks have made anti-American sentiment uncool and "created a new receptivity" to U.S. interests.
"What's happened is anti-Americanism isn't cool anymore," Mr. Axelrod said, speaking to an audience of a few hundred at a conference in Washington sponsored by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
"This president has not only engaged the leaders of the world, he's engaged the people of the world," Mr. Axelrod said, arguing that Mr. Obama's approach to foreign policy has restored "a sense of humility" that "was missing" in the past.
Mr. Obama returned Sunday evening from a four-day trip to Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago, where he sat through a 53-minute anti-American rant from Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and exchanged handshakes and smiles with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has made no secret of his intent to undermine U.S. interests in the region.
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