Bush-Bashing a Favorite Sport for Europeans
By Andrew Cawthorne
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LONDON (Reuters) - President Bush is ill and goes to hospital.
Doctor: "Open your mouth and say a-a-a-a-a."
Bush: "What, at the same time?"
It's a typically wry Russian joke, but it could have come from almost anywhere around Europe where the U.S. leader's intellect is a favorite topic for satire.
Add to that the widely believed caricature of Bush as a trigger-happy global cowboy, and it's perhaps not hard to understand why he provokes so much enmity in the Old World.
Indeed, among U.S. presidents, only Richard Nixon -- of Watergate notoriety -- comes close to rivaling Bush for the unpopularity stakes in Europe.
"We Europeans are extremely negative about him," said Anders Mellbourn, director of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. "There is overwhelming support for Kerry among people in general."
Bush's Republican party, meeting at a New York convention this week, is upbeat over a flurry of new polls showing him gaining ground and slightly leading his Democratic rival John Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.
But the mood in much of Europe is something else.
Anti-war countries France and Germany, in particular, are still smarting at their bitter spat with Bush over Iraq.
Bush is something of a national hate figure in Germany where a recent Allensbach Institute poll found that 66 percent of people have a bad opinion of the White House incumbent.
In France, the Reseau Voltaire think-tank exercised its wit against Bush last year by issuing a spoof deck of cards in a riposte to the U.S. pack of "most wanted" Iraqi leaders.
As King of Diamonds -- the suit chosen to represent economic power in the U.S. administration -- Bush is described as "head of a baseball club ... designated president of the United States by friends of his father at the Supreme Court."
"BUSH LIKES WAR"
On trips to Europe, Bush has been dogged by protest in contrast with often warm receptions for predecessor Bill Clinton. Bush's tough-talking, folksy style may build the confidence of his countrymen post-9/11, but not in Europe.
In Rome, angry scribbles painted during his June visit still seem to capture the mood of many Italians rooting for a November election defeat for Bush. "GO HOME BUSH," reads large, black graffiti under a downtown bridge, while pictures of Bush's face crossed out with an X stain walls elsewhere.
"Bush likes war. He makes and creates war when there wouldn't be any need," student Silvia Brogi, 20, said.
There were also protests when Bush went to France for the D-Day anniversary in June and Ireland for a U.S.-EU summit.
In Ireland, where past U.S. leaders from John F. Kennedy to Clinton have been feted with almost religious fervor, Dublin council even raised white protest flags along the River Liffey.
"If there is a concern, it is not just the Iraq war, it is the notion that America has become an empire. It's a fear the Irish share with the western Europeans," said Professor Liam Kennedy of the Clinton Institute for American Studies.
While the war split Europeans, disgust at the prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib jail was universal and further tainted Bush.
Widespread outrage at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorist suspects, perceptions of a pro-Israeli posture by Washington and the failure to support the Kyoto environmental treaty have fueled anti-Bush feeling.
His verbal gaffes, Texas roots and heart-on-the-sleeve religious views also go down badly among many.
Even Bush's closest European friends are aware of the risk they run by association. Aides for Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's most stalwart ally, know media images of their boss side-by-side with Bush hurt his ratings.
EASTERN EUROPEANS
Bush-bashing is more rare in eastern Europe.
Pro-American feeling is traditionally stronger on that side of the continent due to Washington's role in the defeat of communism and heavy immigration to the United States.
In Poland, Bush's support has dropped from 61 percent last year to 38 percent due to Iraq, according to one poll. But that is higher than the 36 percent who oppose him and still makes him one of the most popular foreign politicians.
While western Europe's elite may sneer at Bush, Russia's elite take a different view, according to Masha Lipman, a political writer at Moscow's Carnegie Institute.
"The general assumption among elites is that Republicans are preferable to the Democrats as they didn't mess with Russia's internal affairs," she said.
Despite Europe's misgivings over Bush, most governments expect to be able to manage if he wins in November.
Some even hope to turn past problems to their advantage.
"It's almost like America is courting us," one senior German government official said recently of U.S. efforts to improve ties. "We will be able to work with this government just fine, if it stays in office." (Additional reporting by Moritz Doebler in Berlin, Tom Miles and Oliver Bullough in Moscow, Phil Stewart in Rome, Patrick Lannin in Stockholm, Joelle Diderich in Paris, Peter Griffiths in Dublin, and Ewa Krukowska in Warsaw)
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