Monsieur Kerree has refused to reveal the names of the foreign leaders who (he says) are praying that he wins the race to become le president.
Here’s what Monsieur Kerree told a small group of Democratic supporters the other day in Florida:
“I’ve met foreign leaders who can’t go out and say this publicly, but, boy, they look at you and say, ‘You’ve got to win, you’ve got to beat this guy, we need a new policy, things like that.”
Inkwell was initially miffed because, in the past, politics has stopped at the water’s edge: Americans running for president didn’t diss the president of the United States to foreign leaders.
Tony Blankley, however, raises other intriguing questions: Who are these furrin leaders? Was Monsieur lying about the whole thing? Notice Kerree says that these leaders have “looked” at him, so it can’t be a conversation on le telephone.
When has Kerree been out of the public eye long enough to meet with these foreign leaders?
But the most puzzling question: Why does Monsieur Kerree think this endorsement will help him en Amerique? (Put another way: Does Monsieur know what country he’s running in?)
Monsieur Blanklee:
“It is true that certain Americans — typically living (or wishing they did) north of the Potomac River and within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean — feel inferior to Europeans regarding high culture and fine dining. But even those Europhiles didn’t look to France, Italy or Germany for guidance on how to run a democracy.
“I am assuming that Mr. Kerry was referring to more or less democratic leaders. Surely he is not referring to former Haitian leader Aristide, various Middle East potentates or African dictators.
“As the leaders of Italy, Spain, Britain, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria have been strong allies of George Bush, one has to assume that Mr. Kerry is referring to France’s Chirac, Germany’s Schroeder, Russia’s Putin, Beligum’s whoever, etc. Mr. Putin is far too smart to bad-mouth the president. So Sen. Kerry must be referring to Messrs. Chirac, Schroeder or some of their lesser Euro-running dog lackeys.
“But Sen. Kerry obviously believes the times are changing. He believes that there may be millions of Americans who will be impressed by the fact that hand kissing, back-stabbing, atheistic, sophisticated Euro-leaders prefer John Kerry to George Bush.
“Whether or not he actually met with any of these leaders, I would suspect that he is right that they would much prefer to do business with a notional President Kerry. Doubtlessly, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev enjoyed dealing with President Carter more than with President Reagan.”