The Longbow Papers

Forgive me, here I go again with another "Must Read" pronouncement; but truly, the article excerpted below is important reading. It is important even though I know that if you are reading this you are most likely not the person who should be reading it: a misguided bushie. But, I do what I can; perhaps these words will reach into the hearts and minds of at least two or three folks with open-minds who at this moment are still un-decided.

PARIS, Sept. 28 -- From Canada to Mexico, from London and Paris to Jakarta and Beijing, President Bush is widely unpopular as a candidate for reelection, according to surveys and interviews conducted in 20 countries.

Sen. John F. Kerry appears to be the runaway favorite abroad, even though few people outside the United States know much about the Massachusetts Democrat or his positions on foreign policy questions.

"If foreigners could vote, there's no question what the result would be," said Guillaume Parmentier, director of the French Center on the United States. "Bush's image, even before the war in Iraq, was not good. The way he comports himself, the vocabulary he uses -- good versus evil, God and all that -- even his body language, most people think is not presidential." He added, "I've never seen such hostility."

Kerry's foreign fans say they like his attitude about consulting allies and respecting their views. To them, he seems worldly, with an African-born wife. He attended school in Geneva and speaks French. A first cousin of Kerry's, Brice Lalonde, is a Green Party mayor of a small town in western France.

Bush appears to have strong support in such places as Israel and Singapore for his stance against radical Islamic groups, and in some countries that are benefiting from world trade, such as India, for his free-market views. But elsewhere, a majority of people appear to be hoping he loses.

"Kerry! Kerry! Kerry!" said Eros Djarrot, a filmmaker and founder of a small political party in Indonesia, the world' s most populous Muslim nation. "Simply because Bush knows what is good for Americans, but he doesn't understand what is good for people outside America, especially people in developing countries." ...

Elsewhere, the American president is viewed as too quick to use force, with no concern for the consequences to others. "I don't like Bush," said Hao Zhiqiang, 42, a taxi driver in China. "He launched the Iraq war. The price of oil is getting higher because of that."

In Canada, a public opinion poll by the Globe and Mail newspaper conducted in July found that Canadians favored Kerry over Bush 60 percent to 29 percent. In Japan, an earlier opinion poll published in the Mainichi newspaper, conducted before Democrats had chosen a candidate, showed only 31 percent of respondents supporting Bush and 57 percent against him.

In Russia, an opinion poll showed Russians preferring Kerry by a ratio of almost 4 to 1, although President Vladimir Putin quipped to reporters that the Bush supporters "include a few very influential people," an apparent reference to himself.

And a survey by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, conducted June 6 through 26 in nine European countries, found that 76 percent of European respondents disapproved of Bush's handling of international affairs, up 20 percentage points from a survey in 2002. The poll also found that 80 percent of Europeans surveyed -- compared with half of Americans -- said the Iraq war was not worth the cost in human life and material loss.

The deep antipathy has produced a round of Bush-bashing magazine covers, books and television debates that many foreign policy observers say is unprecedented, stronger even than the widespread repudiation abroad of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

In Canada, the animosity has been running so high that the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. this month aired a program called, "Has Bush-bashing gone too far?" And in France, a popular Sunday television show, "Le Vrai Journal," has a segment devoted entirely to Bush-bashing, with Americans invited to explain to the French why they hate Bush and plan to vote against him.

At times, normally circumspect diplomats and politicians have found themselves swept up in the sentiment. A Canadian official called Bush a "moron." Britain's ambassador to Italy, Ivor Roberts, said at a conference in Tuscany last week that Bush is "the best recruiting sergeant ever for al Qaeda," according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper. And the Spanish prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, shortly after his upset victory in March, said he hoped Americans would follow Spain's electoral example and replace the incumbent president in November. ...

[...] Bush-bashing predates the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Many policy analysts date it to the administration's decision in its early days in office to reject the Kyoto protocol on climate change. That move affronted many people in the world, in part due to perceptions that it was announced in a high-handed way with no concern for world objections. His subsequent renunciation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty provoked similar dismay abroad. ...

Some world leaders on the other side of the issue are said to be quietly hoping for a Kerry victory in order to improve ties with Washington. One of them is President Jacques Chirac of France, who has had a frosty relationship with Bush since France lobbied against the Iraq war at the United Nations. One French official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he could speak more candidly that way, said that if Kerry won, "I think it will change the atmospherics of the relations, because public opinion would say it's a new start."

The hopes for a Kerry victory sometimes extend to political parties whose ideology is similar to that of the Republicans. Britain's Conservative Party, for instance, is shying away from Bush this year.

The same is true in France, where most members of Chirac's ruling Union for a Popular Movement, or UMP are rooting for Kerry. "In my party, they are all pro-Kerry, except me," said Pierre Lellouche, a member of the National Assembly and a foreign policy specialist. "I am a very lonely voice here saying even if Kerry is elected, the fundamentals of U.S. policy will not change." ...

For all the rancor against Bush, he does draw strong support in some parts of the world. He has backers in Israel, for instance, thanks to a strong pro-Israel policy. A recent opinion poll by the Maariv newspaper found that 48 percent of respondents in Israel supported Bush and 29 percent backed Kerry. Bush also has a good reputation in the affluent Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore, whose government largely shares Bush's fears of Islamic extremism.