Again the Question: What Kind of Image are We Sending Abroad? 

And, perhaps more specifically, what kind of the fact is that image having on our position, worldwide?

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, today. It’s from Ion Mihai Pacepa, who says Precisely what I’ve been saying for years, now”

Take it from this old KGB hand: The left is abetting America’s enemies with its intemperate attacks on President Bush.

To that point:

I spent decades scrutinizing the U.S. from Europe, and I learned that international respect for America is directly proportional to America’s own respect for its president.

My father spent most of his life working for General Motors in Romania and had a picture of President Truman in our house in Bucharest. While “America” was a vague place somewhere thousands of miles away, he was her tangible symbol. For us, it was he who had helped save civilization from the Nazi barbarians, and it was he who helped restore our freedom after the war–if only for a brief while. We learned that America loved Truman, and we loved America. It was as simple as that.

Later, when I headed Romania’s intelligence station in West Germany, everyone there admired America too. People would often tell me that the “Amis” meant the difference between night and day in their lives. By “night” they meant East Germany, where their former compatriots were scraping along under economic privation and Stasi brutality. That was then.

But in September 2002, a German cabinet minister, Herta Dauebler-Gmelin, had the nerve to compare Mr. Bush to Hitler. In one post-Iraq-war poll 40% of Canada’s teenagers called the U.S. “evil,” and even before the fall of Saddam 57% of Greeks answered “neither” when asked which country was more democratic, the U.S. or Iraq.

It’s interesting to me, that the democrats in this country are screaming about our lost prestige in the world, when they are the ones directly responsible for it.   It’s amazing, how much they’re willing to sacrifice in the way of world prestige for our country, just so that they can get a “gotcha” point for the next election.