"Little ones such as devising the separation of powers and defeating communism and Nazism. Big ones such as becoming the most successful economy in the history of the planet."
"Americans," he concludes, "are not eager to vote for a candidate of the studied fickleness of Kerry. Trying to figure out where he stands -- not just on any issue, but the biggest issue of all, the Iraq war -- is like trying to mould water."
_____Live Discussion_____
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Transcript: Jefferson Morley discussed the international media view of Sen. John Kerry.
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_____Recent Roundups_____
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The War's Toll on Iraqi Civilians (washingtonpost.com, Sep 21, 2004)
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Still Divided Three Years Later (washingtonpost.com, Sep 14, 2004)
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Behind the AIPAC Probe, Neocons Seen Battling Rivals (washingtonpost.com, Sep 7, 2004)
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World Pundits Pounce on Bush (washingtonpost.com, Aug 30, 2004)
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Withdrawal Symptoms (washingtonpost.com, Aug 24, 2004)
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World Opinion Archive
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Kerry's failure, says Proceso's Esquivel, reflects a failure of U.S. voters to see what the whole world sees: "The fiasco of the escape of bin Laden and the near civil war in Iraq provoked by an illegal invasion."
In an interview with the Paris daily Le Figaro (in French) , Emmanuel Todd, a best-selling French author, rejected the suggestion that the choice between Kerry and Bush marked a "turning point in the life of the United States and the world."
"You forget a crucial point," he said. "The United States has already well and good lost the war [in Iraq]. Whatever the result of the elections, the new president will have to manage a bloody failure."
Nonetheless, Todd warned against underestimating the differences between the two candidates.
"Bush is still capable of committing missteps even more grave, a preemptive air strike against Iran, for example. And the prudence of Kerry should not be misinterpreted. Roosevelt came in with a classical [economic] program and he made the New Deal."
"What is unfolding in front of the American voters, with the alarming increase in dissonance between rhetoric and reality, is the litmus test for American democracy and how the Americans think about and control the role of the United States in the world," says Imad Khadduri, a former Iraqi nuclear physicist writing for al-Jazeera.net, Web site of the Arab cable news channel.
"It is a heavy responsibility, with corresponding consequences," he says.
And right now, the international online media is putting most of the responsibility on the shoulders of John F. Kerry.
