Tigerhawk:

The featured post on the HuffPo email alert argues that in foreign policy, the personal “identity” of the president is more important than “experience” and that Barack Obama’s identity gives him an advantage over other candidates:

The main issue in American foreign policy now is repairing America’s image in the world. There would be no greater asset in that task than a leader like Obama, who by his very multicultural hybrid biography, renews the fundamental promise of America to the world as a society where every individual is considered worthy enough to get a chance in life. That speaks volumes, far more than a full set of Foreign Affairs magazines on his bookshelf.

In the times ahead, we don’t need so much a seasoned diplomat of the already past post-Cold War moment as someone with an intuitive grasp of global politics in a world of hybrid cultures. Dashing a clash of civilizations and making globalization work are the tasks at hand, not negotiating this or that treaty in Geneva.

To “lead by example,” as Obama has argued — instead of the Bush will to power policies — is the fundamental shift that needs to take place in our foreign policy.

So let me get this straight. The Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Indians, Iranians, Arabs, and — *cough* — Europeans are going to respect the United States more because its president has an “intuitive grasp of global politics” because he had a black father? Only a coastal liberal who has never done business outside the United States could believe that.

Imagine the outrage if somebody argued the opposite and (by the way) equally intuitive point: That much of the world is more racist and sexist than the United States, especially when it comes to Africans, and that we would be better off electing a white man to the White House.

Fortunately, there is no evidence that the “world’s” undifferentiated respect or lack thereof for our president — whatever that might be worth in geopolitical coin — is a function of the color of his skin. From the perspective of most of the world’s chattering classes, it is far more important that our president be left wing than of a particular race or religion. Of that there is no doubt.

Furthermore, the notion that the “main issue in American foreign policy now is repairing America’s image in the world” is pure nonsense. One, it’s the left of the world that hates America and always will, not “the world.” Two, statesmanship is not a popularity contest.

Pity us all if these people get the reins.