It is true that certain Americans -- typically living (or wishing they did) north of the Potomac River and within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean -- feel inferior to Europeans regarding high culture and fine dining. But even those Europhiles didn't look to France, Italy or Germany for guidance on how to run a democracy. I am assuming that Mr. Kerry was referring to more or less democratic leaders. Surely he is not referring to former Haitian leader Aristide, various Middle East potentates or African dictators. As the leaders of Italy, Spain, Britain, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria have been strong allies of George Bush, one has to assume that he (Mr. Kerry) is referring to France's Chirac, Germany's Schroeder, Russia's Putin, Belgium's whoever, etc. Mr. Putin is far too smart to bad mouth the president. So Sen. Kerry must be referring to Chirac, Schroeder or some of their lesser Euro-running dog lackeys.

But Senator Kerry obviously believes the times are changing. He believes that there may be millions of Americans who will be impressed by the fact that hand kissing, back-stabbing, atheistic, sophisticated Euro-leaders prefer John Kerry to George Bush.

Whether or not he actually met with any of these leaders, I would suspect that he is right that they would much prefer to do business with a notional President Kerry. Doubtlessly, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev enjoyed dealing with President Carter more than with President Reagan.

Weak American presidents who feel the need to apologize for America protecting its interests in the world are invariably favored by both our enemies and our competitive friends. The French couldn't stand our last cowboy president, Ronald Reagan.

I am sure that M. Chirac will be glad to continue to kiss Mr. Kerry's hand -- as long as Mr. Kerry will kiss a lower, dorsal part of M. Chirac's anatomy. But I rather doubt John Kerry will get elected president by American voters while in that posture.