Limeys for Kerry

You know, Bush’s spiel about “You can’t denigrate our coalition allies and then expect others to join us,” has a rough-and-ready logic that may win over the suggestible and the unreflective, and I bet it will serve him well in the next few weeks. If Americans can be stirred to care at all about the “feelings” of any foreign country, the U.K. and Australia are probably strong candidates.

But one important point -- that I doubt Kerry or anyone in the media will make -- is that the majority of the citizens of these countries are strongly opposed to the war, and always were. (Why do you think their governments sent so few troops?)

I watched the debates with an English friend of mine, and it didn’t even occur to him to be offended by the whole “coalition of the bribed” thing. He liked Kerry. He said, “He’s the first presidential candidate I can remember who actually seems to truly think and care about what other countries think of the U.S.” That’s true, and Kerry not only conveyed it with no apologies, but made Bush’s unilateralism seem retrograde. Bush’s only argument is that things have gotten so bad now that nobody could possibly get an estranged ally to get on board.

That’s not a bad argument, actually – I too found myself doubting whether Kerry could really convince anybody to help foot the bill for our fuck-up. But my friend’s reaction makes me think differently. People haven’t given up entirely on America, and neither have their leaders. In any case, they know they have to deal with us. They’ve learned to live with Bush, but they’re thirsty for a little reasonableness, non-arrogance, competence, and honesty. Kerry, if elected, could use that to win a great deal of sympathy and cooperation (What you might call the Viola Swamp principle in action.)

Sure, a single Brit isn’t exactly a meaningful sample size, but if this is how your average European sees Kerry (“sincere”, “intelligent”, “probably make a good president”), then it’s just possible that Kerry really could restore our alliances and our credibility.