The latest Gallup survey reveals that citizens across the world manifest a much greater level of appreciation of the United States than the man who currently leads it.

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Apparently, citizens of other nations maintain a greater belief in American exceptionalism than the President of the United States himself. 

That’s the inescapable inference from a new Gallup worldwide survey. 

Recall that on April 4, 2009, freshly inaugurated and supremely overconfident President Barack Obama subsumed the concept of American exceptionalism beneath his prevailing ethos of international relativism.  Pontificating to a reporter in Strasbourg, France, Obama sarcastically preened, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” 

In retrospect, Obama’s choice of Greece as an analogue seems ironic and prescient, since its ensuing fiscal meltdown now serves as a harbinger of what awaits America under an Obamanomic future. 

But more broadly, Obama’s comment confirmed suspicions about the man who labeled himself a “citizen of the world” to intoxicated juveniles in Berlin, and who implausibly denied any recollection of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s vulgar anti-American sermons despite years of attendance.  Namely, that Obama was more the type to stifle a yawn during the national anthem than to get goosebumps. 

On the topic of Obama’s “citizen of the world” reference, however, the latest Gallup survey reveals that citizens across the world manifest a much greater level of appreciation of the United States than the man who currently leads it.  

Released this week, the survey asked over 400,000 adults in 146 countries representing 93% of the world’s population whether they would like to migrate to another country and, if so, to which nation they would most like to relocate.  Approximately 14% of respondents affirmed that they would like to leave their nation of origin, which translates to some 630 million people worldwide. 

The top desired destination?  The United States.

In fact, the choice wasn’t even close. 

The U.S. received more than three times as many votes as the United Kingdom and Canada, which tied for second place.  In the words of Gallup, “About 23% of potential migrants – about 145 million adults worldwide – name the U.S. as their desired future residence.” 

Following the United States, Canada and the U.K. stood all the way down in single digits at 7%.  After that came France at 5%, Spain, Australia, Germany and Saudi Arabia at 4%, Italy at 3%, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland at 2%, with South Africa, South Korea, Singapore, Russia, Sweden and New Zealand coming in at 1%. 

Wait a minute...  How could that possibly be?  How could the United States dwarf such enlightened socialized medicine utopias as Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland as the most-desired destination? 

The survey data comparing whose citizens expressed a desire to abandon their current countries was just as interesting. 

Unsurprisingly, citizens of sub-Saharan Africa were most inclined to migrate, at 33%.  The Middle East/North Africa, also unsurprisingly, collectively came in second at 21%.  But guess which population tied for third, just behind at 20%?  None other than European Union respondents.  Believe it or not, E.U. residents expressed the same level of desire to migrate as citizens of Latin America, whose residents notoriously risk their possessions, their health and even death in order to enter the United States. 

By comparison, only 10% of North Americans (which included the U.S. and Canada) expressed a desire to migrate, half the level of Europeans. 

So much for the liberal myth of European utopias of leisurely coffee houses, high-speed rail, “free” healthcare, more regulation, automobiles the size of file cabinets, wind power and docile armed forces. 

It all raises the question of why Obama by all available evidence seeks to emulate those supposed Euro paradises even as they deteriorate fiscally, economically and demographically.  Perhaps other nations’ citizens simply recognize something that Obama never learned in the faculty lounges and community organizing centers. 

Namely, that America actually is exceptional.