George W. Bush's victory in Tuesday's U.S. presidential election showed the depth of conservative sentiment in middle America that liberals failed to take account of, European newspapers said on Thursday. Left-leaning dailies expressed incredulity and horror at the result -- "Oh, God" in small white letters were the only words on an otherwise completely black front page of an inside section of Britain's Guardian.
They were drinking early at The Guardian, I'll bet...
But the same newspaper, which had backed Democratic challenger John Kerry, headlined one article on the election: "Small-town morals win the day. The coalition of moderate classes, the financial world and Christian traditionalists gathered in by the (Bush) strategist Karl Rove expresses the deep-rooted spirit of the country, the domestic mood snubbed by the mass media," said Italy's leading broadsheet Corriere della Sera. "Fearful of attacks by Osama bin Laden, frightened by the guerrilla warfare in Baghdad, American public opinion decided these are not times for social experiments and found in Bush the values of simplicity, faith, family, community and country."
American voters preferred Bush, "who looks and indeed talks like a Southern farmer, simple, level-headed and honest" to the tall, aristocratic, French-speaking Kerry, said Hungary's left-wing Nepszabadsag.
Some newspapers said outright the U.S. public was wrong. "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" asked the British tabloid Daily Mirror, which vigorously opposed the U.S.-led Iraq war, in a reference to the number of Bush voters.
Hey, don't make us come over there. And you all know Bush is a maniac, so we just might...
Turkey's liberal Radikal said American voters had "closed their ears to international public opinion."
No. We listen to it. We just don't pay much attention to it.
"Parts of the U.S. elite are now asking the same questions as are being asked in London, Paris or Berlin: How could it happen? Why didn't the voters realize that Bush's politics are bad for ordinary people?" said Sweden's Svenska Dagbladet.
We love our 80% tax rate over here. What's wrong with you Americans?
But another Swedish daily, Dagens Nyheter, said people had better get used to it. "The world not only needs to be ready for four more years with George Bush but prepare itself for future U.S. leaders to be colored by religious and moral conservatism."
That really freaks them out, doesn't it?
Belgian dailies agreed that the election result marked the shape of things to come. "Those who think that Bush ... will opt for a more consensus-driven course, are wrong. The population is backing his approach. The neo-conservative bunch surrounding him will see no reason to change their minds," wrote De Standaard. Left-leaning De Morgen said a second term might have a moderating effect on Bush's advisers, "but it could just as well be that the president will become even more obsessed by the messianistic self-image he has created himself." He's mad, I tell you!! Totally, totally mad!!
Serbia's Politika said it could go either way. Bush "could slowly start changing the relationship toward his allies in the world and no longer insist on American domination at any cost," or he might "pursue his old ways."
Way to take a stand, Politika.
Commentators in several countries speculated on the repercussions on their own political scenes, including in Russia, where papers said the Bush win would be good for President Vladimir Putin. "Our guy won -- Bush will share his second term with Putin," read the front page headline in Vremya Novostei.
