Regardless of the effect on world events, global giddiness that Bush was finally handed a political black-eye was almost palpable throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
In an extraordinary joint statement, more than 200 Socialist members of the European Parliament hailed the American election results as "the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for the world" and gloated that they left the Bush administration "seriously weakened."
...
One Frenchman, teacher Jean-Pierre Charpemtrat, 53, said it was about time U.S. voters figured out what much of the rest of the world already knew.
"Americans are realizing that you can't found the politics of a country on patriotic passion and reflexes," he said. "You can't fool everybody all the time -- and I think that's what Bush and his administration are learning today."
I hope they are learning it. But I doubt it. I think it's likely that the only thing they've learned is that they did not play dirty enough. This crew is not self-reflective enough to learn anything edifying from losing.
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