The International PR Game

I really gotta hand it to Barack and the Obama administration, they have orchestrated an almost flawless international debut with the G-20 summit and NATO meeting, big speeches in Prague and the border town of Strasbourg, France, a visit to Turkey to promote our country's relationship with those aligned closely to Islamic culture, and a surprise visit to Iraq to hand out medals of honor to several troops, give a speech, and get an update and overview of the on-going situation there. He brings back with him from this trip a new sense of global connection as Americans see their president networking with other world leaders and producing real results, and it seems as though the world stage is welcoming for Obama and the international audience largely approves. This is all so vastly different than the 43rd president of our country and almost a little rough to get used to. Was it not too long ago that every time our country's leader stepped out of the White House there would be some verbatim gaffe to laugh about or shoe-throwing dramedy to gossip on? Reading reports on world leaders mocking and avoiding him as he tried to garner their respect in himself and the country he represented? Things have definitely changed in foreign diplomacy policy at the White House, and I am pretty content with what's there now. And on top of a slam dunk tour of Europe and the Middle East, our President even called it for N. Carolina in the NCAA bracket, so he's pretty much ballin' like a pro at this point.

Obama giving his weekly address aboard Air Force One while touring Europe, White House Photo 4/3/09.

David Sanger, a blogger over at NY Times, writes about an emerging Obama Grand Strategy that this recent international trip hints at. I have to agree, I do believe we are beginning to see the development of a worldwide PR campaign to mend and clean up some of the damage the United States has inflicted on its international image over the last few years. And while this might seem like a focus on image over intelligence, I think that it is because of this administration's intelligence that they understand how critical it is to present yourself and even an entity like the USA in the best way possible.

And the Domestic PR Game is still very much at play, I just came upon White House on Vimeo, which is my favorite video hosting service (for it's high quality compression and HD offerings, and also for being a magnet for more artistic/informative video uploads) online. Here you can watch up-to-date high-quality video of the on-goings of the Obama administration, which I think will become the new norm in documentation of historic governmental events. I am definitely content with being able to easily view what's going on overseas in a format like this!


--Drew