Posted on 11/04/2004 10:38:42 PM PST by Former Military Chick
BRUSSELS -- A mixture of dismay, despair -- and in one case an unflattering assessment of the IQ of Americans who voted for President Bush -- dominated European newspapers yesterday.
"How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?" asked British Daily Mirror in a front-page banner headline that described the election result as a "disaster" and lamented "war more years."
"March of the Moral Majority," bellowed the headline on the Daily Mail.
The Independent let its pictures do the talking, with the top of Page One featuring images of Iraqis being tortured at the Abu Ghraib prison, hooded suspects on their knees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a Republican supporter with a sign saying, "Finally a Christian fighting evil, thank you George Bush."
The Guardian, a left-leaning British daily that encouraged readers to send letters to U.S. voters urging them to back Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry, commented:
"We may not like it. In fact, to tell the truth, we don't like it one bit. But if it isn't a mandate, then the word has no meaning. Mr. Bush has won fair (so far as we can see) and square. He and his country -- and the rest of the world -- now have to deal with it."
Not all British papers were depressed at the prospect of four more years of conservative rule.
"The world is a safer place today with George W. Bush back in the Oval Office," said the Sun, Britain's best-selling daily.
"His re-election is bad news for terrorists everywhere. They know President Bush means it when he vows to root out terrorism wherever it exists. John Kerry was weak on terrorism and weak on Iraq. His one moment of strength came when he conceded defeat with dignity instead of demanding recounts."
The conservative Daily Telegraph similarly said U.S. voters "have demonstrated once and for all that no power on earth can intimidate a free nation."
But the Telegraph -- like papers from Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Switzerland and in Eastern Europe -- also struck a note of concern about the trans-Atlantic chasm.
It urged Europe to come to terms with an America that "is diverging from Europe: It is younger, more self-confident, more prosperous, more devout, more diligent, more democratic and, in short, more conservative."
French newspapers, which had covered the election campaign in all its gory detail, could not hide their disappointment at Mr. Bush's victory.
Describing the result as a "revolution," an editorial in leftist daily Liberation declared: "A new reactionary majority has consolidated its hold on American democracy. The rest of the world may deplore it, but it will have to adapt to this reality."
Grudging respect for the free choice of American voters was a recurrent theme in many European newspapers .
Spain's leading daily, El Pais, commented: "George W. Bush is probably not the president the rest of the world would have wanted, but it is he who American voters have democratically elected."
Winning more votes than his opponent -- unlike four years ago -- and not having to rely on a Supreme Court ruling for victory mattered a lot to European newspapers, many of which never regarded Mr. Bush as the legitimate leader of the United States for the past four years.
"The American people have made their choice," said a front-page editorial in Belgian daily Le Soir. "It is now up to us to manage our relations with this key nation."
Many papers said Europe's response should be to get its act together, rather than grumble endlessly about American unilateralism.
"With or without us, America will continue its foreign policy of the past four years," said Hungary's Nepszabadsag. "Europe must close ranks and build a military force in keeping with its economic weight."
Germany's Der Tagesspiegel argued, "Europe should reconsider its ambitions, which seem naive, to act as a political counterweight to the USA."
Most German papers viewed Mr. Bush's re-election with dread.
In an editorial titled "The Fundamentalist Majority," the center-left Berliner Zeitung commented: "The re-elected Bush claims he wants to reunite an extremely divided country.
"That's exactly what he promised four years ago, but he has done the opposite."
An editorial in Austria's Der Standard said of the Republican win: "The 11th of September prepared the U.S. for a man like Bush. He is the man of the dark hour."
For most European newspapers, this was not a contest between Mr. Kerry and the sitting president -- it was a referendum on Mr. Bush's muscular foreign policy and conservative social values.
"Bush!" is the one-word headline on the front-page of Belgium's Le Soir, while the paper's rival La Libre Belgique was even pithier in its banner, opting for "W."
The only man more delighted with the result than Mr. Bush is "a skinny, bearded man hiding somewhere on the Afghan-Pakistani border," wrote Czech business daily Hospodarske Noviny.
The paper argued that Osama bin Laden "needs not only his faith in God Almighty but also a clearly defined enemy."
In Mr. Bush, the Saudi terrorist has one for the next four years. So do tens of millions of Europeans, the newspaper said.
Did you post about the terror threat for Nov. 13?
Unverified stuff that is not from "main" sources is usually not allowed in News, especially not in Breaking News, but we have a Threat Matrix thread, which I thought you knew about,where that kind of thing can and is posted and discussed.
Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat - Thread Twenty-One
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1268023/posts
See posts 758-764.
remember that these are only the musings of the NEWSPAPERS of those countries. Not their people. Does anyone believe the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times etc. reflect what we believe?
Nothing Europe does or says really bothers me because I understand that, for the most part, their best and brightest has pretty much drained away to America over the past two centuries.
That is to say, their idiocies are expectable.
How can socialists in Second World has-been nations seriously think that the world's only remaining superpower gives a royal crap what they think?
Just goes to show that the irrelevance of Europe grows greater by the second. This is just the "old world" creaking its bones and suffereing from Alzheimers.
"Europe must close ranks and build a military force in keeping with its economic weight."
Um... Is this unpronounceably named individual suggesting that he wants Europe to go to war with us? I must admit, I was a bit taken aback by this statement. I don't care, but it did surprise me.
What in the heck is your problem? You got a post pulled?
Big deal. Where in the heck does that give you the right to bash the mods or even worse pull this stuff about tofu on the West Coast as opposed to a hundred thousand pounds of jet fuel?
That was silly. Just silly.
I think you need to find a good "intellectual" psychiatrist and spend some time with them.
It happened in New York. Next time it might be Houston, or Chicago or anywhere else in the country.
Tell me, oh great New Yorker, what are you people going to do when it happens somewhere else and you are not the center of attention anymore?
Could you guys just get over yourselves please. We are an entire nation that is hated.
Not just one state.
Grow up.
That's funny, I see all those as GOOD things! "I guess I just disagree"
In 50 years, Europe will be much easier to deal with. It will be Muslim-majority, and thus we will need only concern ourselves with where to drop our bombs.
I don't have a clue what you are talking about. My wife and I LIVED in NEW YORK 7 miles South of the United States Military Academy when we were bombed. I know nothing about a current terror threat.
Hey Tex. Every been to NYC. Ever see forty stories of rumble? Dead bodies, blood and guts from folks who dove out of 80 story building with their clothes on fire? Many of my friends are Viet Nam vets, with permanent injuries. I went to college with them I am very sensitive to battle in what they went through in defending America. I was too young to participate. I am attempting to take my skill sets to the Pentagon as a seasoned business executive. My brother was a Viet Nam veteren who earned a Silver Cross as a helicopter pilot. He never talks about his combat missions nor his award of the cross. My father was a Navy Commander in WWII. Saved thousands of sailors and airmen in the South Pacific. There is an extremely long military history in our family which we can trace back to the late 1700's. Can you?
Also, what the heck does the military service of your family, quite honorable and heroic as it was, have to do with tofu, 911 or having a post pulled?
Actually yes I can ... every war the US has been in except this one. Quit whining about getting a post pulled.
okay, I will step down. my sister-in-law is a nurse too. many burn victims on 911. oh well. nothing of interest I guess.
"Silver Cross"? I wasn't aware that there was a US military decoration by that name.
And, please convey my respect and thanks to your brother for his service.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.