International Reaction to the US Election

[Misnomer]

The BBC’s website has a page of quotes from foreign leaders, reacting to our election result: In quotes: World reacts to US poll.

Kenya and Israel seem less than thrilled; the UK was carefully noncommittal; and, for some reason, the Australian foreign minister’s remarks made me chuckle. (YMMV, of course: I made these remarks to some friends and family via e-mail, and not everyone agrees with my summation.)

I know that for politicians it’s important to support whoever wins, but do the quotes ring true with Dopers in those countries (all of them, not just the ones I mentioned)?

[Cunctator]

The Australian Foreign Minister’s comments ring true. The Australian government was very clear in its hope that George Bush be re-elected. However, politicians are always pragmatists and, had John Kerry won, then the Australian government would have gone to work immediately, building a relationship with the new administration.

[cmkeller]

Good lord, that picture of Putin looks like Renard from TheWorld Is Not Enough. Scary.

[Melandry]

I think Venezuela is pretty funny.

We are dancing the tango. When you are dancing the tango and your toe is stepped on, hurting your toe, you complain. If it is stepped on harder, you complain again. There’s a whole game, but we are prepared to continue dancing the tango.

“If we make it a dancing metaphor, it won’t seem so Machiavellian to note that we look after our own interests and don’t like it when the US treats us shabbily!”

Not that it is particularly Machiavellian for a country to look after its own interests, of course, but seeing it stated flat out always seems so…gauche or something.

[Misnomer]

Woah, I didn’t realize that the quotes on that page would be getting updated. Tony Blair’s quote is not the one that appeared earlier; “noncommittal” no longer applies.

@Melandry

I think Venezuela is pretty funny.

Agreed!

I was also amused by the first sentence of the interim prime minister of Iraq’s quote: “Whoever wins will be our friend.” Talk about CYA…

[rjung]

I’m more interested in hearing the reactions of international non-politicians to our election results.

I suspect the majority of them will be along the lines of “SHIT! You Americans really are fucked up, aren’t you?!” :eek:

[Alessan]

@Misnomer

The BBC’s website has a page of quotes from foreign leaders, reacting to our election result: In quotes: World reacts to US poll.
…
Israel seem(s) less than thrilled.

Less than thrilled? Hardly. Here’s the quote:

Mr Kerry would have been a very friendly president to Israel as he proved to be for a long time in the Senate. Now that Mr Bush is elected, we are very happy and we congratulate the American people for their choice.

Olmert was just being polite. I’m pretty sure the Sharon administraton is satisfied with the results of the election; still, they don’t want to burn any bridges with the Democrats.

[Larry_Mudd]

I see Canada isn’t represented in the BBC article. Here ya go.

Prime Minister Paul Martin […] warned his MPs behind closed doors to use restraint when passing judgment on Mr. Bush’s election victory. […] “We should limit our comments on any preferences we may have had or have with who won,” Mr. Martin said, according to an MP who was in the caucus meeting room.

Jeez, why would he feel the need to say anything like that?

“He has been reconfirmed as their commander-in-chief, and he is a war-like man,” [Member of Parliament] Carolyn Parrish said.

Ms. Parrish, who also said Mr. Bush’s re-election demonstrates that Americans are “out of step” with the rest of the world, made the remarks after the Prime Minister told caucus members they should refrain from commenting on who they thought should have won. […] The federal government has been criticized for anti-Bush sentiment, particularly over Ms. Parrish’s other remarks, which included referring to the Bush administration as bastards.

[El_Kabong]

This morning’s UK Independent’s front page read simply “Four More Years”, white text on black background, as for a funeral, with the text surrounded by images of an Abu Ghraib torture victim, a smirking Dubya, and a church sign saying something like “Thank God we have Christian President who will fight evil”, among others.

I think I’ve managed to figure out the paper’s general attitude toward the election results.

[Angua]

To be fair, the Independent is one of the UK’s liberal broadsheets, as is the Guardian, and they both have a very similar reaction. A case of “Good God No”. The Mirror, which is a left wing tabloid is rather cutting towards those who voted for Bush,

However, The Mail, which is a right wing tabloid, leads with “March of the Moral Majority”. The Telegraph (otherwise known as the Torygraph), one of the most right wing broadsheets, leads with “Bush returned in triumph”.

So, there’s a mix of reactions. The liberal left wing here, are, like their counterparts in the US, dismayed. The right wing sees it as a triumph of a good moral president.

[DougC]

• • • Interesting to read how Putin has his own Moslem terrorists to stomp, and he is the only one expressing open-approval of Bush’s re-election in spite of Bin Laden’s “election tape”.
      …
• I think it would have been really, really funny to see a live broadcast of the streets of some major Moslem countries, after hearing that Bush got re-elected.
  ~

[Exgineer]

@rjung

I’m more interested in hearing the reactions of international non-politicians to our election results.

I thought these were interesting.

[35340]

tango