Europeans do a number on Bush

Got to hand it to the Europeans, they are shall we say a bit more sophisticated, than our lapdog media. Lets take a look at what some of the European Press ha to say about the dimwitted dauphin's resplendent in resolutitude, address to the United Nations. From the NTY.

The Financial Times contended in its lead editorial that the Bush administration "systematically refused to engage with what actually has happened in Iraq" - namely, in the newspaper's view, that American policy "mistakes" had "handed the initiative to jihadi terrorists" who "now have a new base from which to challenge the West and moderate Islam."

Thats Putting it kindly. And rather than rely on the Times, lets go the the source for some eloquent analysis, or as some might say statements of the obvious.

While Mr Bush adopted an emollient tone towards the UN, an institution his administration so evidently mistrusts, the extent of the president's disengagement from the reality of a sinking Iraq is alarming. He exhibited no sense whatsoever of grievous US policy mistakes, of the serial failures of the occupation authorities, or the extent to which the Iraqi misadventure has handed the initiative to jihadi terrorists - who always were the clear and present danger, but now have a new base from which to challenge the west and moderate Islam.

The president chose to bracket Iraq with the only marginally less volatile situation in Afghanistan. Post-conflict state-building there is fragile but Mr Bush can point to elections due to take place next month. He professed to believe these two nations are becoming models for their regions.

But the future of these countries will depend more ultimately on challenging the relentlessly unreal optimism of these assertions than on believing them.

Thats more like it. Now lets go back to the times, and see what others have to say.

The Polish newspaper Nasz Dziennik, however, argued in an editorial that Mr. Bush, having "attacked Iraq in defiance" of those nations that called for United Nations authorization for invasion, Mr. Bush was now trying to convince the international community that it should pay for the "chaos'' caused by "reckless policy."

Chaos would be an appropriate description of the present state of Iraq, and Reckless policy certainly got us their. Lets see what the French have to say.

In Le Figaro, which reflects the thinking of France's conservative establishment, the correspondent Philippe Gélie wrote that Mr. Bush was "impervious to criticism'' in the conduct of American foreign policy, and characterized his speech as that of a "campaigning American president'' who "lectured the rest of the world.''

Come on tell us what you really mean. The germans choose not to mince words.

An editorial in the German daily Tagesspiegel was blunt. Its headline: "U.S., U.N., Iraq: The truth counts for nothing.''

I guess the speech did not go over very well with the Europeans, who might have a little better handle on the realities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and see through the transparency of a campaign speech obviously directed for american consumption. Mr Stay the course did not win any allies yesterday.