He just doesn't have the knack

Jackson Diehl in Wapo observes that while Obama is popular overseas,unlike W, he has forged no real friendships with foreign leaders. Guess he doesn't have the knack.

The paradox here is that Obama remains hugely popular abroad — from Germany and France to countries where anti-Americanism has recently been a problem, such as Turkey and Indonesia. His following means that, in democratic countries at least, leaders have a strong incentive to befriend him. And yet this president appears, so far, to have no genuine foreign friends. In this he is the opposite of George W. Bush, who was reviled among the foreign masses but who forged close ties with a host of leaders — Aznar of Spain, Uribe of Colombia, Sharon and Olmert of Israel, Koizumi of Japan.