[Torie]

In short, if Europe is waiting for a new administration or a new set of policy professionals to rise to positions of influence, the Continent may be in for a very long wait. The style in which affairs are conducted may change, and the blunt take-it-or-leave-it pronouncements of the current administration might be softened, but the substance of American foreign policy will remain roughly the same. The current direction of U.S. foreign policy--reshaping the Middle East, pre-emptive confrontations with potentially threatening adversaries, and an ambivalent attitude toward international organizations that constrain the use of American power to achieve those ends--is unlikely to change substantially with any new administration that could conceivably come to the White House in the near future.

Yep. Kerry won't change much I suspect if he gets in, beyond the cosmetics, when it comes to foreign policy. The imperatives are simply too compelling. That at least is my hope, although even the change in cosmetics will raise my blood pressure.

[nopardons]

Kerry would change far more than "cosmetics"! Look at the people he'd has in his administration,as opposed to President Bush's team.

[bayourod]

Being a conservative used to be very simple. All you had to do was support the death penalty, oppose admission of China into the UN, oppose giving away the Panama Canal, want lower taxes and a bigger military.

What happened?