Europe's Choice

Now that Al Qaeda has chosen Spain's leadership, John Kerry wants Europe to choose ours.

Adam Wolfson discusses the meaning of Kerry's remark that he is the choice of foreign leaders on NRO today.

According to Wolfson, "Last time I looked foreign leaders don't vote in U.S. presidential elections. One might add that they do not, by definition, have our best interests at heart. The protection of American citizens is neither their business nor their concern. This is as it should be, and is all obvious enough. But does Kerry get it?"

Kerry doesn't get it. But the fact is that political distinctions such as borders and constitutions that separate people now seem arbitrary and unjust to most sophisticated Westerners who probably do not see an obvious problem with Europe's opinion playing a role in an American election. The problem, according to the sophisticated, ultra-cosmopolitan point of view, is that arbitrary political distinctions would prevent Europe from having its say.

The universalism of liberalism has degenerated into a kind of flaccid transnationalism or thoughtless cosmopolitanism without respect for political distinctions -- really without respect for politics. Kerry may wish he hadn't said this, but the fact that he could entertain it and did say it reveals so much about him and about prevailing opinions today.