They Like to Watch

NPR's The World radio program ran a segment tonight on WatchingAmerica.com, an aggregator of foreign media coverage of the United States. I'm always resolving to be more diligent in checking European and Asian news sources on the web, but I'm also always failing to do so, mostly because those furriners are so crazy. And sometimes their damn websites aren't even in English. I mean, how nice is that? Not very.

Anyhow, WatchingAmerica.com looks like a good shortcut to seeing what the rest of the world is thinking about us. Short answer: nothing very good. Long answer, here's a bit from an editorial in the Khaleej Times of the United Arab Emirates (where it is the year 1426):

For President Bush, the more things change, the more they stay the same. In a desperate attempt to check the growing opposition to Iraq war at home and around the world, the White House has unveiled what has been touted as the roadmap for "victory in Iraq." Bush followed it up with yet another feel-good speech in the comforting presence of U.S. troops vowing not to "cut and run" from Iraq as long "as he is the commander-in-chief."

(By way of review, here's the Village Voice's take on the site: "Watchingamerica.com has for some months been part of a nutritious media breakfast, serving daily doses of U.S.-focused news and commentary from abroad to an America unwholesomely satisfied with the view from up its own ass.")