World Leaders Desperately Seeking Obama

President brings "psychological finesse" to the G20

(NEWSER) - Therapists could learn a thing or two from the "psychological finesse" Barack Obama showed in Europe this week, Maureen Dowd writes in the New York Times. Obama's upbringing taught him how to "slip in and out of different worlds," and that legacy was on display at the G20 conference as he turned the "the bluster and insecurities of other politicians" to his advantage. More»

(NEWSER) - No soul-searching gazes or shoulder rubs on this trip. President Obama's initial foray into foreign relations stands in stark contrast to the style of George Bush, writes Jonathan Martin in Politico. Bush took the "chummy," "towel-snapping" route in his relations with foreign leaders. Obama, on the other hand, is all business, and the White House took pains to emphasize how "frank" and "sober" today's discussions were (save for the queen). More»

Plus: Guess who's the most popular president ever?

(NEWSER) - In honor of Presidents' Day, pollsters have ranked the most popular presidents ever—and it turns out George W. Bush is slightly more popular than our current leader, at least by one measure. Some 46% of Americans see President Obama favorably, and 49% have a negative view of him, marking a 3-point favorability gap. Bush has just a one-point gap, with 45% approving and 46% disapproving of him, Public Policy Polling reports. Indeed, Republicans despise Obama more than any other demographic hates any other president—12% to 84%. More»

Ex-Prez Bush says bailout his idea, and a good one

(NEWSER) - Three years ago, Mitt Romney wrote that President Obama should " Let Detroit Go Bankrupt ," instead of bailing out the struggling auto industry, in a famous New York Times column. And today? Even with the American auto industry on the rebound, Michigan's GOP primary looming on Feb. 28, and Rick Santorum breathing down his neck in the polls , Romney still thinks bankruptcy would have been better than the president's "crony capitalism," he writes in the Detroit News . "I believe that without his intervention things there would be better," he writes. More»

Ezra Klein crunches the numbers and comes up with a lower total than you think

(NEWSER) - Mitt Romney has taken to carrying around a debt clock, blaming President Obama for the ever-climbing number it shows. But the clock doesn't show how much Obama has actually added to that debt, so Ezra Klein set out to find out. "There are two answers," he writes in the Washington Post . The first, which is "simple and wrong" is $4.7 trillion. That's what you get when you subtract the debt when Obama took office (about $10.5 trillion) from the current debt (about $15.2 trillion). More»