I plan to stay right here, but the new Iraq will definitely be more inviting than the old, not least to its own citizens.

I think that the Baathist dead-enders, Sadrist thugs and imported Al Qaeda terrorists would try to murder me for wearing such a pin, but the average Iraqi would be more likely to shoot me if I were to wear an "I Love Kerry" pin.

From: virus@lucifer.com

Date: 06/15/04 07:55:24

To: virus@lucifer.com

Subject: Re:virus: That Dirty Feeling

....i anxiously await your news informing us of exactly when you will be

moving to the wonderful new democratic state of Iraq? im sure you'll have a

wonderful time there discussing politics and religion in the many cafes

catering to the wonton intellectual. wear your "i love bush" pin on your

lapel and your sure to make quite an impression!

France and Germany find themselves in a box, and John Kerry loses one of his

IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE that it has been only one week since the celebration

of the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion that liberated France from the

Nazis. A lot has changed in a mere seven days.

Start with the international scene. George W. Bush, Jacques Chirac and

Gerhard Schröder took their act from Normandy to Sea Island Georgia, where

they were joined by other members of the G-8 and assorted interested

parties. There, Chirac proved once again that a chasm exists between his

words and his deeds. "France will never forget what it owes America," the

French president told some 6,000 D-Day veterans and assorted guests in his

talk last Sunday in the Norman coastal town of Arromanches. A few days later

he opposed America's requests for deeper involvement of NATO in the

pacification of Iraq, saying such a move would not be "opportune"; fought to

water down Bush's program to foster the growth of democratic institutions in

the Middle East, stating that he opposed such "missionary" work; and

responded with a vigorous "non" to Bush's plea that Iraq's creditors join

America in forgiving "the vast majority" of the debts incurred by Iraq

the G-8 nations, Japan is owed $4.1 billion, Russia $3.5 billion, France

$3 billion, Germany $2.4 billion and the U.S. $2.2 billion.) And just to

make certain that none of the anti-American voters at home gets any idea

that he has moved too close to the Americans, Chirac decided to pass up

president Reagan's funeral to keep an unspecified "previous commitment" in

Gerhard Schröder is in a more difficult position than the French friend with

whom he has formed an alliance forged in steel. He is riding a tiger: he has

whipped up anti-American sentiment, and ridden the wave of anti-Americanism

to electoral triumph. But he now wants to open markets and investment

opportunities in the countries that have recently joined the European Union,

and to cozy up to the delegates they will be sending to the various E.U.

institutions. Unfortunately for him, eight of these countries remember that

it was American steadfastness in the Cold War, and Ronald Reagan's decision

to replace containment with victory as his policy goal, that got them out

from under the Russian boot. So these countries, and the German business

community, are telling Schröder to tone down his anti-American

rhetoric--which he can't do without antagonizing the voters he has persuaded

to hate America in general and George W. Bush in particular.

TO ADD TO the Franco-German discomfort, the U.N. Security Council

unanimously approved the new Iraqi government, led by Ghazi al-Yawar, who

was educated in America. And when the heads-of-state show moves on to

Istanbul later this month for the NATO summit meeting, after a two-day stop

in New Market-on-Fergus in Ireland for an E.U.-U.S. summit meeting, Chirac

is likely to find that his resistance to NATO involvement in Iraq's

reconstruction will be ignored by an organization desperate to prove that it

is relevant to the 21st century. All in all, it seems that in a single week

the reputations of George W. Bush and Tony Blair have moved from the valley

of despair to the bright uplands reserved for those who get it right in the

All of this geopolitical toing-and-froing overshadowed some important

developments on the economic front. With Japan now firmly on the path to

growth, Europe is the world's principal laggard. Treasury Secretary John

Snow called upon the European Union to rely less on export-led growth, which

adds to America's trade deficit, and to take steps to accelerate domestic

demand. But the Europeans are engaged in a blame game. Schröder and Chirac

blame the European Central Bank for keeping interest too high, while the ECB

blames France and Germany for violating the fiscal rules of the Growth and

Stability Pact--and for refusing to reform their labor and product markets.

The funny thing is that both the ECB and its critics are probably right--the

one-size-fits-all interest rate set by the ECB is too high to maximize

growth in France and Germany, and the French and Germans' refusal to

institute economic reforms is holding back their economies. The most

uropean economy will grow at an annual rate of about 1.5 percent this year,

NOT ALL THE NEWS from these meetings is gloomy. The heads of state did

manage to pronounce themselves in favor of a resumption of trade-opening

talks, and to promise to reduce trade-distorting agricultural subsidies and

Whether those pledges can survive the pressures of the American presidential

campaign is not certain. Bush is showing commendable courage by defending

free trade as a creator rather than a destroyer of jobs, and ridiculing

calls to end outsourcing. He has also had the Commerce Department cut

anti-dumping duties on Chinese television sets to levels that will have

All of this is a misfortune for John Kerry. His campaign rests on a

three-legged stool. The first leg is that Bush is a job-destroyer; but the

economy has created almost one million jobs in the past three months, and is

probably adding better than 10,000 every day. The second leg is that Bush

has antagonized America's allies and is isolated; the 15-0 Security Council

vote to recognize the Bush-backed Iraqi government saws that leg off. The

final leg is that the Bush tax cuts have been a disaster. Ronald Reagan's

death has brought renewed attention to the fact that the late president's

tax cuts helped to end the recession he inherited from Jimmy Carter, just as

Bush's cuts kept the Clinton recession short and mild.

Not a good week for the president's foes, here and abroad.

Irwin M. Stelzer is director of economic policy studies at the Hudson

Institute, a columnist for the Sunday Times (London), a contributing editor

to The Weekly Standard, and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard.

This message was posted by Joe Dees to the Virus 2004 board on Church of

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