A Glimmer Of Understanding?

So if you're the notorious anti-American known as Jacques, what's the last thing that you'd want to see? How about a memo from the EU stating that, among other things, Europe has got to recognize the "seminal effect of the events of Sept. 11, 2001 on American fears, thinking and strategy."

Hey, we're only 18 months removed from the event. In America, we were talking about the change in about, what, 18 minutes? It's not as it was kept a secret. We changed on 9/11.

Osama figured it out (the hard way). Saddam figured it out (again, the hard way). The clerics in Iran know that this time things are different. They even figured it out to a point (but it still won't be easy to convince them).

Poor Europe, their bureaucracies are still sending out memos about the possibility of there actually being a change in the US.

But the memos are not completely without merit. The writers did take care to propose solutions to what they view as a problem of poor US public perception of Europe.

They express concern about "mutual suspicion" and "crude stereotyping." But instead of talking of "poor depictions of the President" or his advisors the article goes on to detail out the charges of Bush being a "reckless cowboy" and of Wolfowitz and Perle of "hijacking US foreign policy. Instead of discussing "differences in policy" the article notes that the memo refrains from "criticism of Washington's unilateral actions."

The memo wants to see Europe more effectively market itself outside of New York and Washington. They want to "expose Americans to our brand of democracy." I already know about the EU "brand" of democracy. I've read up on the first draft of the EU Constitution. Their brand of democracy strikes me more a great leap forward into the past of feudalism, with the Lords living in their palace in Belgium as the serfs toil everywhere else around the Continent for the benefit of the egos in Brussels. I want no part of EU democracy. It might be a nice place to visit, but that's about it.

Old Europe is starting to come around just a bit.

But it's going to take more than a memo to change American views towards Europe.