It's one thing for a pack of bloggers - you know, the ones that are so predictable that you don't actually have to read them to know what they say - to jump up and down waving their hands over something like Kerry's remark about world leaders wanting Bush to lose. But for Bush himself to make an issue of it - "With the Dutch prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, at his side, Mr. Bush demanded that Mr. Kerry provide evidence to support his suggestion last week that foreign leaders want to see Mr. Bush defeated. "If you're going to make an accusation in the course of a presidential campaign, you've got to back it up with facts," Mr. Bush told reporters on Tuesday - suggests an astonishing lack of seriousness by someone who wants to be a "wartime President." This is really how you spend your day, Mr. President? This is what you think is important? Fine. Duly noted.
So does much of the world want Bush to lose? According to the Pew Global Attitudes survey, released yesterday, "A year after the war in Iraq, discontent with America and its policies has intensified rather than diminished. Opinion of the United States in France and Germany is at least as negative now as at the warís conclusion, and British views are decidedly more critical. Perceptions of American unilateralism remain widespread in European and Muslim nations, and the war in Iraq has undermined Americaís credibility abroad. Doubts about the motives behind the U.S.-led war on terrorism abound, and a growing percentage of Europeans want foreign policy and security arrangements independent from the United States. Across Europe, there is considerable support for the European Union to become as powerful as the United States. ... Large majorities in almost every country surveyed think that American and British leaders lied when they claimed, prior to the Iraq war, that Saddam Hussein's regime had weapons of mass destruction." If world leaders are in tune with their public opinion, then these findings do not suggest great confidence in Bush.
More seriously - and anything, virtually, would be more serious than this non-scandal - these findings suggest yet again that the hawks' bold claims that the projection of American power would generate respect and bandwagoning don't find much support. The "short term" is slowly merging into the "medium term" here, and I'm still waiting for the upsurge in admiration for American power and leadership.
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