Obama's European scorecard

U.S. President Barack Obama was celebrated like a rock star in Europe but returned home without much concrete support for his most ambitious plans.

Obama's diplomatic tour de force of Europe included pit stops at a Group of 20 summit in London aimed at saving the world economy; a NATO summit in France and Germany intended to celebrate the alliance's 60th anniversary and round up support for the crucial NATO mission in Afghanistan; a meeting with EU leaders in the Czech Republic, where Obama called for a world without nuclear weapons; and a final stopover in Turkey, where Obama reached out to the Muslim world.

All over Europe, Obamania followed the president, with crowds cheering him and heads of state and government eager to make Obama look like their new best friend. (Think French President Nicolas Sarkozy.) However, these very same leaders ducked most of Obama's concrete demands.

France and Germany vetoed the president's vision of a giant $1 trillion global stimulus plan, giving their green light only to extra funds for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank -- a small success, at least.

At a NATO summit in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany, European nations ducked calls to send additional combat troops into southern Afghanistan, where NATO forces are engaged in bloody fighting with the Taliban-led insurgency.