Kerry Can Scratch This Foreign Leader
Captain Ed
I guess we can scratch Japan from the list of countries to which John Kerry may have referred when speaking about how foreign leaders preferred him to George Bush:
The comments come a day after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made remarks that appeared to suggest he would prefer to see Bush win the Nov. 2 U.S. presidential election.
"I think there would be trouble if it's not President Bush," Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe told a radio program, Kyodo news agency reported.
"For instance, Mr. Kerry wants to handle the North Korean issue bilaterally, which is out of the question. We're now in the era of multilateralism," Takebe was quoted as saying, referring to six-way talks involving North and South Korea, Japan, the United States, China and Russia over the North's nuclear ambitions.
Bush has ruled out bilateral talks with reclusive communist Pyongyang, but Kerry has said this could be possible.
Asked by reporters about the U.S. election, Koizumi said on Thursday: "I am very close to President Bush. So I want him to do his best."
I suppose being called "coerced and bribed" by Kerry also didn't help much with Japanese leadership, especially after their losses in Iraq. Oddly enough, Kerry and his superior diplomatic sensibilities never considered the notion that Tokyo might actually resent being cut out of disarmament talks with its worst regional threat. Given Kerry's predilection for appeasement, Koizumi and Takebe probably have no desire to play the part of Czechoslovakia to the Munich that Kerry has planned for dealing with North Korea. |
