Shame.

Here at Public Agenda, weíve created a new tool to track Americansí opinions on foreign policy issues, providing a basis for political commentary. Similar to the Consumer Confidence Index, the Foreign Policy Anxiety Indicator provides policy makers, journalists and ordinary citizens with the public’s overall comfort level with America’s place in the world and current foreign policy.

An essential tool updated twice a year, the Indicator will consistently provide much-needed information on the publicís perception of more than two dozen aspects of international relations.

In a world strewn with violence and highly-charged international issues, Americans are broadly uneasy about U.S. foreign policy. The September 2006 shows the Foreign Policy Anxiety Indicator at 130 on a scale of 0 to 200, where 0 is the most confident, 200 the most anxious and 100 neutral.

Eight in 10 Americans feel the world is becoming a more dangerous place for Americans, yet they’re also skeptical about most of the possible solutions, such as creating democracies or global development. Only improved intelligence gathering and energy independence have substantial support, with energy firmly established as a national security problem
for the public.

In fact, the public lacks confidence in many of the measures being taken to ensure Americaís security. Less than 33% of Americans give the U.S. government an ìAî or a ìBî grade for its execution of the following foreign policy issues: reaching goals in Iraq and Afghanistan, maintaining good relationships with Muslim countries and protecting U.S. borders from illegal immigration. And these are just a few of the findings of the survey.

These are some of the other startling findings:

- 83 percent say they are worried about the way things are going for the United States in world affairs (35 percent worry “a lot”, with an additional 48 percent saying they worry “somewhat.”)

- 79 percent say the world is becoming more dangerous for the United States and the American people

- 69 percent say the United States is doing a fair or poor job in creating a more peaceful and prosperous world

- 64 percent say the rest of the world sees the United States negatively

- 58 percent say U.S. relations with the rest of the world are on the wrong track

Want to learn more? Go to http://www.publicagenda.org/foreignpolicy/index.cfm to download the report.

Public Agenda is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group devoted to public opinion and public policy. The confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index is developed in cooperation with Foreign Affairs with support from the Hewlett and Ford foundations.

Actual working families of wal-mart would either (a) coopt the blog pretty quick (b) spot it was phoney and everyone else would skip past such a dull sounding site.

I guess it might be useful to create fictional sound-bites for our lazy media but that hardly seems as if it would be worth the effort when the media often prints up corporate press releases directly.