Canadawide

From the Weekly Standard http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/686yfvgm.asp?pg=2 "European governments are steadily beginning to realize that Kerry will ask the Europeans for all kinds of things they will be unwilling or unable to provide. The Democrat has staked his candidacy on getting more international support in Iraq and Afghanistan. He will find it hard to take "Non" for an answer from Paris. That may make for an uncomfortable series of discussions between President Kerry, President Jacques Chirac, and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Given the level of expectations on both sides, Old Europe might think it would be better off dealing with another four years of President Bush, who at least will expect nothing and get nothing from them.

There's another reason the French and the Germans might be quietly rooting for a Bush victory.

The unpopularity of President Bush, and Chirac's and Schröder's aggressive stand against him, is the only thing that gives the French and German leaders any sort of credibility in the eyes of their own people. Both head otherwise unpopular governments pursuing largely failed economic policies at home. In particular, anti-Bush sentiment keeps alive the French dream of uniting Europe in opposition to the United States--Chirac's famous counterweight to the superpower.

They need Bush.

In any case, the French governing elite would surely miss having someone to scorn in Washington. It feeds their innate self-belief and superiority complex. A senior French diplomat was recently overheard bemoaning to a fawning audience of like-minded souls the rising level of anti-French sentiment in America.

'They've stopped eating French fries in the Capitol. Some restaurants in New York no longer sell French wine,' he said. Then, the sarcastic coup de grâce: 'I've even heard that George Bush has stopped reading Proust.'"

The Proust bit had me laughing.

George Bush is the least popular politican in the world hands down. In Canada2 more than a few progressives will be pulling for Bush. With Bush in office Conservative Republican want to be Stephen Harper does not stand a chance.