Friday, May 11, 2007

New era for U.S., France, Germany

The times, they are a changin:

Amazing, isn’t it, how the conventional wisdom that holds sway among many sophisticated — i.e. liberal — Washingtonians and New Yorkers is often so completely divorced from reality.

These folks have come to take it as a given that America’s involvement in Iraq has inflicted severe damage to our nation’s image abroad, especially in Europe. But the most recent national election results from France and Germany demonstrate that this “truth” about George W. Bush’s America is about as credible as the recurring rumor that Elvis is actually alive and well flipping hamburgers in happy obscurity somewhere near Seattle.

Exhibit A here is France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, who is described by the editors of the old gray lady on West 43rd Street in Manhattan as “unabashedly pro-American.”

In an election with a record turnout, Sarkozy won more than 53 percent of the vote in his contest with Socialist Segolene Royal, who was anything but pro-American. Sarkozy admires American initiative and hard work, and has made it a first order of business to mend the relationship almost strained beyond repair by a decade of Jacque Chirac’s shallow echoes of Charles De Gaulle’s “Third Way” illusions of the Cold War. Read More.

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