Regarding Barack Obama's election as U.S. president, I welcome the groundswell of hope. It's about time. The past eight years have been, well, awkward for Americans overseas.

The Bush II administration undermined America's image abroad. The Pew Global Attitudes Project, which surveys views of the U.S. from around the world, reported in 2007 that "Anti-Americanism is worldwide. This is not just a rift with our European allies or hatred of America in the Middle East. It is a global slide."

There's plenty to be ashamed of: election oddities culminating in the 2000 Supreme Court coup d'etat; opting out of the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court; the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security; "pre-emptive war" as a superpower prerogative; circumventing the United Nations with a "coalition of the willing"; lack of policy oversight in a one-party Congress; a vice president with a bunker mentality and extreme notions of executive privilege; wars in two countries grounded on lies about weapons of mass destruction; unwarranted wiretapping; Guantanamo; Abu Ghraib; signing statements; rendition, torture memos and waterboarding; forthcoming presidential pardons for connected felons. Need I go on? Even Bush's own party had to make "change" a platform plank in its campaigns ahead of the November polls.