Obama Most Popular Leader, Poll Finds - NYTimes.com

Obama Most Popular Leader, Poll Finds - NYTimes.com: "President Barack Obama remains by far the most popular world leader among people in major Western nations and is the one political figure on whom people consistently pin their hopes in the economic crisis, according to new polls conducted for the International Herald Tribune.

About 80 percent of people in France, Germany, Italy and Spain have a positive view of Mr. Obama, a ratio that declines only slightly, to about 70 percent, in the other two countries surveyed, Britain and the United States. The only politician who comes close is Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who gets a positive rating from two-thirds of those in Continental Europe but from only one-third of Britons and Americans."