John Kerry may not have received a post-convention bounce from American voters, but the news isn't all bad for the Democratic nominee. Today he received his first newspaper endorsement; unfortunately, the newspaper is the European and far-left Observer:

Kerry insists he will be a different President. Under him the US would achieve its foreign policy ambitions through leadership of the international alliance system, accepting the compromises that that implies. Kerry would restore the treaty system covering the spread and testing of nuclear and chemical weapon systems, that Bush has jettisoned. He would cooperate in relieving Third World debt; he would be sympathetic to the Kyoto accords. He would not prevent sex education and the use of condoms in the campaign to fight Aids. He would back science and stem cell research. He would encourage alternative energy technologies.

The Observer pushed the envelope when it comes to political bias. Instead of acknowledging that American politics might be more complex than a London tabloid understands, the editor goes for the crassest possible explanation of Americans they can possibly create in order to justify their Kerry preference:

The US has hardened into two virulently opposed ideological and cultural camps that are almost equal in numbers. On the two seaboards, around the Great Lakes, in the north east and some cities of the south, the Democrats have their base: mildly progressive, multilateralist, tolerant and fair-minded. In the south, the Rocky Mountains and the plains lie the Republican base: religious fundamentalists, fervent believers in America's unilateralist destiny and culturally conservative. This is 50:50 America.

In other words, the Democrats are all sweetness and light while the Republicans are religious nutbars and, by implication, intolerant and oppressive. Even partisans here in the US would have trouble swallowing that blanket stereotyping, hardly any indication of the fair-mindedness that the Observer supposedly admires about the American left. (One wonders how Michael Moore fits into that mold, anway.) As if this description wasn't dim-witted enough, the Observer finishes by inflating their sense of self-importance regarding American politics:

In a bitter fight in a divided America, reassurance that Kerry has the support of the rest of the world could be a decisive factor in key swing states. We must offer that signal.

I'd love to see the Kerry campaign trot that signal out on the campaign trail. "Europeans For Kerry" -- talk about a losing strategy! It shows the ineptitude of the Observer to suggest it, which also puts their endorsement of Kerry in its proper light.

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