Posted 3:48 AM by Paul
Kerry Gets His Mistakes in Early

I hope he doesn't do this again.

At a meeting in Florida Kerry apparently divulged that many foreign statesmen had let him know that they hoped he beat George Bush. Whilst undoubtedly true and desirable, there is no more sure fire way of piling on the votes for George W than claiming that the rest of the world wants him fired. A whole chunk of American voters don't really believe in the Rest of the World or at least only as those dark places that the President keeps referring to in his speeches.

The process of impeachment and the constitutional obligation that presidential candiates must be born in the USA are designed to confront and minimise any foreign influence on the US polity. That is also the source of the Monroe Doctrine. Fear of European meddling. At the very heart of the concept of America is the notion that Europe is the Old World, corrupt and divisive. We would have hoped Kerry would have remembered this.

The US presidential elections matter to us in the Rest of the World, but we hinder Kerry by helping him. He needs to keep schtum about any foreign support. In fact, if he is serious about winning he should engineer an argument with Jacques Chirac.