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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (7678)	3/16/2004 11:46:02 AM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

AS, Why once again no link?

To: American Spirit who wrote (7678)	3/16/2004 12:16:40 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

Kerry Reaches Out to a World Where Support for Bush is Ebbing Away Challenger claims president's 'allies' have told him they are cheering him on. Shortly before Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, flew to Washington for talks with George Bush last month, a journalist asked if he was going to say goodbye to the president ahead of the US elections in November. By Guardian Newspapers, 3/9/2004 Shortly before Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, flew to Washington for talks with George Bush last month, a journalist asked if he was going to say goodbye to the president ahead of the US elections in November. Mr Schröder's adviser grinned broadly before composing his face into a frown. "I won't speculate on that," he said. Although Mr Schröder deliberately avoided the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, during his two-day trip to the US, there is little doubt that a Kerry victory would provoke rejoicing inside Germany's government, as it would in many other parts of Europe, as well as Asia, Africa and Latin America. This week Mr Kerry claimed that foreign leaders had told him they could not publicly offer him their support but added: "You've got to beat this guy, we need a new policy." Hostility towards a second Bush term is generally assumed to be widespread throughout the world because of the Iraq war, the concept of pre-emptive strikes and bullying of small countries. On issues from the Kyoto agreement and the international criminal court to antipathy towards the UN, President Bush has alienated countries Washington would normally classify as allies. Distress over Mr Bush's foreign policy is not confined to the world beyond the US. According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll yesterday, 57% of Americans want their next president to steer the country away from the course set by the current leader. Asked how much support Mr Bush had worldwide, Dana Allin, senior fellow for transatlantic affairs at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: "Not a lot. There is a conventional wisdom about US elections for foreign policy: that the incumbent is always preferred because of [established] relations and predictability. This is an election where that pattern is broken. There is a perception, for better or worse, that there has been a departure from the tradition of American foreign policy." It is difficult to assess the level of opposition to Mr Bush. When he put together a "coalition" for the war against Iraq last year he gathered just 43 countries - and it was an odd collection that included countries such as Azerbaijan, Eritrea and Uzbekistan, not normally in the forefront of international diplomacy. Tom Ridge, the US homeland security secretary, told diplomats and academics gathered in Singapore yesterday that 70 countries had joined an informal alliance against terrorism. But this is no evidence of support for Mr Bush; there are leaders who will think it prudent to back the world's sole superpower though privately they would welcome a Kerry presidency. Mr Schröder's spokesman last night denied he was one of the "foreign leaders" who had sent a secret message of support to Mr Kerry. Victor Bulmer-Thomas, director of Royal Institute for International Affairs, in London, said yesterday he doubted if any head of government had been unwise enough to say in private to Mr Kerry that they wanted him to win and thought it more likely that the "foreign leaders" to whom the Democratic candidate referred to were foreign secretaries or heads of parliamentary delegations. buzzle.com