BRUSSELS, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- A recent cartoon of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in the Swiss newspaper Le Temps just about sums up the loathing most Europeans have for U.S. President George W. Bush ahead of the Nov. 2 U.S. presidential elections.
The sketch highlights different parts of Kerry's Mount Rushmore-like face that appeal to different sections of the U.S. electorate. "Perm: pleases the women," says one caption pointing to the Democratic contender's blow-dried coif. "Vietnam scars: pleases veterans," says another, while an arrow pokes fun at his "Celine Dion chin" which "pleases young people." But the most important part of Kerry's anatomy is left until last. "Not George W. Bush," it says. "Pleases everybody."
Like many Americans, Europeans feel little warmth toward the Massachusetts senator who is generally regarded as awkward, aloof and prone to reversals of positions. But in the eyes of most people across the "old continent," Kerry has one good thing going for him: he has little in common with the present White House incumbent.
"George W. is a good recruiting sergeant for us," says Kevin Prager, chairman of Democrats Abroad Belgium. In the last year, the number of DA members in Belgium has gone from zero to 500 members, though Prager acknowledges many recent recruits fall into the "Anyone but Bush" category. Even the opposition is running scared. The former chair of the Belgian branch of Republicans Abroad, Christian de Fouloy, was so angry at Bush's foreign policy he quit the party and set up "Republicans for Kerry."
Polls show if Europeans could vote Nov. 2, Kerry would already be measuring the curtains for the Oval Room by now. A worldwide survey carried out by 10 national newspapers found voters in eight out of the 10 countries polled wanted Kerry to beat Bush in next month's election. The good news for Bush (who notched up 27 percent, compared to Kerry's 54 percent,) is he is more popular than his Democratic rival in Russia and Israel. The bad news is even voters in traditionally friendly countries like Britain, Australia and Japan prefer Kerry by a wide margin.
It is difficult to exaggerate the extent to which most Europeans dislike Bush junior.
"He is seen as brash, irreverent and disrespectful to allies," says Bill Drozdiak, director of the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund. "His Texan accent also doesn't travel very well in Europe."
For many Europeans, Bush represents everything they find distasteful about the United States. His southern swagger and talk of catching Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" only reinforces the cowboy image many Europeans have of the Yale-educated, millionaire president. His foreign policy reflex runs against the grain of European thinking since the end of World War II. His Old Testament references to good and evil states and right and wrong actions are perplexing to largely secular Europeans brought up in a world of differing shades of gray. And his Orwellian rhetoric about being "either with us or against us" in the war on terror reminds many Europeans of periods of their history they would rather forget.
Then there are the policies. Most Europeans believe global action is needed to tackle climate change and the Kyoto treaty aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a small, but necessary, first step. One of Bush's first actions as president was to walk away from Kyoto and question whether climate change was happening at all. Europeans think the International Criminal Court is the place to try bloody dictators who have committed crimes against humanity and acts of genocide. Bush sees innocent U.S. troops as the only likely victims. Bush looked at the world map after the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan and saw Iraq ("That famous non-WMD possessing state," in the words of EU foreign affairs commissioner Chris Patten) as the main threat to peace. Europeans saw failed states, poverty, terrorism, the Arab-Israeli conflict and mounting hatred of the United States in the Muslim world as tinderboxes that could catch ignite.
A Kerry presidency would not lead to a love in between Europe and the United States, believes U.S. German Marshall Fund President Craig Kennedy.
"Europeans have become extremely disappointed with Bush and his foreign policies, but anybody who thinks Kerry is going to deliver on Kyoto, the International Criminal Court and so on should forget it," he said.
There is little doubt, however, Europe would find it easier to work with a Kerry administration bent on working with the United Nations and healing the wounds caused by Iraq than a second Bush one. Asked who he would be rooting for on Nov.2, outgoing European Commission President Romano Prodi told United Press International: "I clearly prefer multilateral policy choices in the United States. I prefer Kyoto, I prefer the International Criminal Court." No guessing who he is backing then.
Throughout the U.S. election campaign, Bush has repeatedly taunted Kerry for offering to give France and other suspect European allies a veto over U.S. foreign policy. He genuinely believes if the rest of the world is against him, he must be doing something right.
Two recent events have showed the limits of this worldview. In Iraq, the United States won the war but lost the peace, because it has few allies and little experience in nation-building. On climate change, Bush believed U.S. opposition would be enough to torpedo the pact, but the Russian Duma's ratification Friday paves the way for Kyoto to come into force.
What the rest of the world thinks of America matters because the next time the U.S. president goes in search of a "coalition of the willing" to intervene in some global hot spot, he may find few volunteers; the next time the United States is struck by terrorists, he may find fewer sympathizers; and the next time he comes begging for troops and money to get the United States out of the mess it finds itself in Iraq, his pleas might fall on deaf ears.
