AS BUSH SINKS WITH CONSERVATIVES HERE AT HOME, OLD EUROPE BECOMES MORE PRO-AMERICAN

LATIMES:

France's new president goes jogging in an NYPD T-shirt. Britain's prime minister-apparent likes to vacation on Cape Cod. And Germany's chancellor once got an impromptu back rub from President Bush.

Welcome to the new "old Europe."

At the beginning of 2003, Washington had all but written off the historical power brokers of continental Western Europe. France and Germany, dead set against going to war in Iraq, were "a problem," then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said. The Bush administration's favor had tilted toward the east, where it found solid support among the European Union's newcomers.

Four years later, a new set of players emerging on the old Europe bench could tip the balance back toward the Atlantic. Britain, France and Germany are fielding potentially the most pro-U.S. group of leaders to emerge in Western Europe in years.

ALL THE MORE REASON THAT NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR BUSH TO BE PRANCING TOWARD THE LEFT!