Spying scandal puts an end to Barack Obama's long European honeymoon
US president faces continent disappointed with achievements and outraged by spying scandal
Explosive revelations about US phone and internet surveillance programs will challenge President Barack Obama's popularity and moral authority when he arrives in Europe today.
Because he was not George W. Bush, who was reviled by millions across the continent, and thanks to a magnetic personal story and rise to power, Obama wallowed in hero worship as a candidate in Europe in 2008 and on debut presidential trips.
Candidate Obama was the prophet of hope, who told 200,000 young people in Berlin pining for a new John F. Kennedy, that Europe and America must remember their destiny and "remake the world once again".
Yet at home and abroad, in the teeth of a global financial firestorm, President Obama learned that delivering change was tougher than promising it.
While he honoured a vow to end the deeply unpopular Iraq war, and will halt Nato combat in Afghanistan next year, Obama has disappointed Europeans on issues like climate change and closing Guantanamo Bay.
And now, he has been revealed as the figurehead of a secret American intelligence war that is more sweeping than anyone knew.
Europeans are among foreigners in the crosshairs of a vast phone and internet surveillance program run by the shadowy US National Security Agency (NSA), now exposed in newspaper leaks.