THEY LIVE IN THE EUROPE THAT W MADE:

W. regrets almost nothing (Maureen Dowd, June 15, 2008, NY Times)

In a way, W. is very different from the cocky, know-nothing, chip-on-his-shoulder "Bully Bush" I followed on his maiden European tour in 2002. His disdain for Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder, and theirs for him, was bristlingly clear.

He told the bemused French that he'd heard tell from Jacques about their "fantastic food," and he lectured the bewildered Germans, as though they were thick on the subject, that Saddam was evil because he "gassed his own people."

This time, he left the heavy lifting on Afghanistan to the more popular Laura Bush, while he hung out with French, German and Italian leaders he likes.

"Your Eminence," he told the pope, "you're looking good." Angela Merkel dodged when asked at a press conference whether she would miss W., but said she liked being able to "call a spade a spade with him."

He enthused that "German asparagus are fabulous," and wryly told a Paris audience that "my hair is a lot grayer," assuming that the French, with their history of foiled colonialism, would know why. He seemed, all these years later, intent on spiritual absolution.

In other ways, however, W. was not very different. He was still pushing, but more softly, the same refrain that turned Europe so virulently anti-American: his muscular proselytizing that sometimes military power is necessary to break up terror networks, and that there is "a moral obligation" to extend "a more hopeful and compelling vision" of democratic ideals to "provide our security and to spread the peace."

That's the refrain that turned Europe from a stomping ground for Chirac, Schroeder, and JPII into one run by W's buddies.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 15, 2008 8:38 AM