WASHINGTON, July 17 (UPI) -- What will European leaders make of Sen. Barack Obama as he plays proto-statesman on the world stage for the first time on his current trip?

Obama, D-Ill., certainly will receive a hero's welcome: The broad consensus of European media pundits and the European public far prefers him to either current U.S. President George W. Bush or Republican presumptive presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Obama is seen as a return to the "good" America of President Bill Clinton and, for that matter, of his predecessors George Herbert Walker Bush and even Ronald Reagan, who treated European leaders seriously, took their input on board, and did not launch unilateral major wars while brushing the Europeans off.

The so-called Big Three -- although, in terms of ratings, Fox News is bigger -- American TV network anchors are also taking the unprecedented step of accompanying Obama on his trip -- an honor they never afforded McCain when he visited Mexico and Colombia earlier this month or when he traveled to Europe and Israel earlier this year.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is collapsing in the polls because of the British public's perception that he lacks the backbone and guts to push through any effective policy, will certainly be eager to grab at Obama's coattails and give him unquestioning support in whatever he does.