World Anxious About Another Four Years

Reuters has this story on Inauguration Day

PARIS (Reuters) - The rest of the world will be watching with anxiety when President Bush is inaugurated Thursday for a second time, fearing the most powerful man on the planet may do more harm than good.

Many world leaders, alienated by Bush's go-it-alone foreign policy and the U.S.-led war in Iraq would have preferred him to lose the U.S. election last November. Since his victory, they have been urging him to listen and consult more.

Mistrust also runs deep among ordinary people. Some 58 percent of people surveyed in a British Broadcasting Corporation poll in 21 countries said they believed Bush's re-election made the world a more dangerous place.

Does this same 58% think that the folks who bring us nuclear bombs, dirty bombs, car bombs, airplanes flown into buildings, kidnappings, beheadings, mutilations, state-sanctioned rape, mistreatment of women and gays, summary executions, mass starvation, school massacres, gas attacks, and mass graves, have made the world a more dangerous place, too? Just asking.

ADDENDUM: Thinking about it, the survey question is rather dumb. Ask criminals if they think appointing a tougher police chief makes their world a more dangerous place. You betcha -- and that ain't a bad thing for the rest of us.