IT'S A LOCAL CALL:

The leader of Europe? Answers an ocean apart (John C. Freed, April 4, 2008, IHT)

Henry Kissinger, U.S. secretary of state in the 1970s, once asked, "Who do I call if I want to reach Europe?" A new poll shows a trans-Atlantic gap in the answer today.

Most Americans think the call should be placed to Gordon Brown in London. But Europeans - especially the French - tend to think Angela Merkel should pick up the receiver in Berlin, according to the poll by Harris Interactive for the International Herald Tribune and France 24 television.

When asked what country is the leader of Europe today, a majority of Germans, perhaps unsurprisingly, picked Germany: 57 percent, the same figure as among Spaniards. Among the French, that figure rose to an astonishing 68 percent. The Italians and British were divided on the question between Germany and Britain.

On the other side of the Atlantic, 63 percent of Americans saw Britain as Europe's leading nation.

As the NATO summit just showed...again...the US is the leader of Europe.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 4, 2008 7:57 AM