Our senior fellow John Miller appears in today's New York Times to tell why international popularity polls are so unreliable. This is timely, given the defeat yesterday of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics bid. If President Obama's charisma was as overwhelming as some in the media imagine, one might have thought that after his personal arrival in Copenhagen to argue Chicago's case that Chicago would have come in first. Instead it came in fourth.
But, almost to console the President, Miller points out the way that international popularity is a poor guide to how well America is doing, or anything else.
Polls have very little use in domestic politics and almost none in foreign affairs. At least they shouldn't. Study human nature instead, Mr. President--and national interest.
One hopes the President bears this in mind as he develops his policies on Afghanistan and Iran.
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