European Media Paint Bush, America as Villains

July 7, 2004

PARIS - In an Iraqi court last week, Saddam Hussein called President Bush a criminal. Very few Americans took that charge seriously.

But the international news media has repeatedly cast President Bush as a villain on the world stage. And for millions around the world, the message seems to have sunk in.

George W. Bush may be locked in a tight race here in the U.S., but if he were running overseas, especially in Europe, he would not stand a chance. Recent polls show that globally, Bush is one of the most unpopular American presidents in modern times. It is no stretch to say most of the world hopes he loses in November.

If it was a global election, George W. Bush would probably get trounced. That is especially true here in France, where anti-Bush feeling is among the highest of any European nation.

The research firm, Global Market Insite, asked citizens in the G-8 economic nations who they would pick if they could vote in America's presidential election.

When undecided voters are removed from the results, the GMI poll found that although Bush would beat John Kerry in the U.S., Kerry got 85 percent of the vote in China, 84 percent in Russia, 84 percent in Japan; 94 percent in Germany, 93 percent in France, 79 percent in Britain and 73 percent in Canada.

Nobody likes the word "brainwashed," but this and other results from the poll suggest that a sustained anti-Bush media campaign around the world, and consistently negative coverage of the Iraq war, have had their effect.

The coverage of Bush and Iraq is so one-sided in Europe that it is now accepted as fact that Bush and the Iraq war are both bad, and you had better not say otherwise. There is no room for discussion. Some Europeans have a name for this kind of intellectual environment.

Writer Jean-Christophe Mounicq, calls it, "Totalitarianism."

Mounicq is a rarity, an American-style French Conservative. He is a writer, professor and has been a policy advisor in the French parliament. But his political career is over, for now, because of his pro-American views.

Mounicq said, "If you were in favor of the war, or if you simply tried to explain what were some of the good reasons, then you couldn't go to TV to explain that, you couldn't write any article on this subject."

French Journalist Alain Hertoghe chronicled France's one-sided coverage of Iraq in his book, "All-out War, How the Press Lied to Us About Iraq." He studied the coverage in France's major newspapers and found it so distorted and anti-American that no Frenchman would understand why American forces reached Baghdad so quickly.

Hertoghe says the French media rooted openly for the dictator Saddam Hussein, and reported, wrongly, but with obvious glee, that American forces were bogged down in a hopeless quagmire. It is a phenomenon that continues to this day.

Mounicq added, "All the good news, all the things that are going well in Iraq, they are never written. They are never shown on TV. They always show, if there is in one town, a revolt, then they focus and say all Iraqis are fighting against the Americans."

Hertoghe's book created no controversy in France, because there was media blackout on the book, and Hertoghe, a respected journalist who only reported facts, was fired by his boss, who accused him of treason.

Guy Milliere, another of that rare breed, a pro-American conservative in Paris, says the French media is held captive by the extreme Left, and anything perceived as support for Bush or Iraq can be dangerous to one's career.

Milliere said, "A good friend of mine worked for the public radio system, and he said to me, 'I think like you, you know it, but don't say it to anybody or I would risk getting fired.'"

American journalist and author Richard Miniter remarked, "Europe doesn't have a free press, aside from Britain and Ireland, the way the United States does."

Miniter, a former European correspondent for the London Sunday Times, says many in the European media simply refuse to report any good news out of Iraq. "Remember the merchants of Baghdad? The eight people who - Saddam had chopped off their right hands? Americans donated the money to fly these people over and have artificial hands attached. This story played fairly big in the U.S. media. Not a word in the European media. Not one word."

So it should not be surprising that, when asked if the Iraq war was a mistake, majorities in every G-8 nation except America said yes, most by at three-to-one or even four-to-one margins.

The same respondents, by margins of four and five to one, also said the U.S.-led war against al Qaeda was a failure, that George W. Bush is a failure as a leader, and that abuses by American forces, such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, are common in Iraq.

Some might say that that is what happens when newspapers like France's respected Le Monde run political cartoons showing President Bush as a Ku Klux Klansman who enjoys torturing Iraqis. Or Bush sitting in the same jail cell as former Yugoslav dictator Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.

But media bias against Bush and Iraq is not only a problem for America's image overseas. It is a problem for European democracy. Because important stories and political scandals may not be reported at all.

Miniter said, "For example, when I would discuss the oil for food scandal, which is a major United Nations scandal. It involves Kofi Annan's son, Kojo. Now it looks like Kofi himself might be involved. Mr. (Benon) Sevan, a high ranking UN official is directly involved. Payoffs to hundreds of people in governments around the world, especially in Europe. And the Europeans say, this must be American propaganda. I've heard nothing about this."

So it is ironic when the French magazine Marianne asks if America, rather than Europe, can still be called a democracy.

The French media is also revising history. During the recent D-Day anniversary, the media continued a recent trend of downplaying or removing America's role in freeing France from the Nazis.

Milliere said, "Many people in France now believe that France was liberated by de Gaulle, not by the Americans."

George Bush is not the first President to be hated by the European media. Ronald Reagan got similar treatment.

Miniter commented, "There's very little any American president, let alone this American president, can do to get rid of the structural anti-Americanism that exists in Europe."

KERRY can’t change this either! No matter WHAT he says! This is something the Democratic party has helped to cause, accept it or not.

When asked in Ireland about how hated he is in many countries, George W. Bush replied that he has a job to do, and he is going to do it, whether he is hated or not. But he must be relieved that the rest of the world will not be voting in November.