And to think. . .

. . .had John Kerry been elected, he'd be cozying up to this guy, trying to get a troop commitment:

". . .French President Jacques Chirac — dubbed Le Worm — was doing his best to scupper bridge-building.

He will snub a meeting with Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi in Brussels today. It is a sleight aimed at Mr Bush and Tony Blair, who back Mr Allawi.

Chirac — who tried to stop the war to topple Saddam Hussein — will leave Brussels before the new Iraqi leader arrives.

However Chirac DID find time to visit Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in hospital yesterday.

Meanwhile, Mr Blair was working to heal rifts over Iraq, and flew to Brussels to rally EU leaders."

That's right. What we need is to be more respectful of the opinions of world "leaders" who snub the heads of emerging Mideast democracies (like Iraq) in favor of a dying man whose power can be attributed to the killing of civilians in the only other democracy in the region (like Arafat).