Obama’s comments, regardless of their validity, show an appalling lack of political acumen and respect for the electorate.
He also exhibits a total lack of leadership ability. Leaders, like Lincoln or Reagan or Thatcher, inspire people by appealing to their sense of self respect or fairness or patriotism. (Some leaders appeal to people's baser instincts, like Hitler or Pol Pot.) In any case, Obama demands that people follow him, merely because he's better than them. His greatest appeal is an amorphous, anodyne and glib personality into whose protean form onlookers pour whatever preconceptions they bring.
Obama is representative of the shallowness of the common denominator culture of today. Leaders like the ones you mentioned are a thing of the past. Obama occupies the same sphere as pop singers, reality show stars, and credit card instant gratification. He is a symptom of the culture.
As someone who has lived 25 years of his adult life abroad in 9 different countries and travelled to more than 60 others, I would say unhesitatingly less when compared to the rest of the world. There is no more tolerant and welcoming country to immigrants than this one.