WELL, HE’S BEEN SUPER-TRUSTWORTHY ON EVERYTHING ELSE, SO THAT’S FAIR: Obama Asks Germany to Stop ‘Assuming the Worst’ About NSA Spying.

President Obama on Monday admitted that revelations about the National Security Agency’s international spying operations had hurt the U.S.’s reputation in Germany—but he asked for more patience from the close diplomatic ally as he works to bolster privacy safeguards on the handling of foreign data.

“There’s no doubt that the Snowden revelations damaged impressions of Germans with respect to the U.S. government and our intelligence cooperation,” Obama said during a press conference held jointly with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But the president quickly defended the importance of the NSA’s intelligence-gathering practices, showing impatience with the international community for its growing skepticism of his administration’s concern for the civil liberties of foreigners.

“Occasionally I would like the German people to give us the benefit of the doubt, given our history, as opposed to assuming the worst, assuming that we have been consistently your strong partners and that we share a common set of values,” he said.

These days, even Americans aren’t sure Obama shares a common set of values.