Europe sees lighter side of U.S. election

Election 2000: A field day for satirists

By Douglas Herbert, CNN.com Europe writer

LONDON, England -- It was the morning after the U.S. election. America did not have a new president. And French television reporter Ulysse Gosset, reporting live from Washington, did not have a clue.

"We're listening to you Ulysse," cued an insistent news presenter in Paris.

"Look, I'm confirming that we can't tell you anything at all for the instant. They're still counting the ballots in Florida -- so there's nothing to say."

When the presenter refused to take no for an answer, Gosset lost his composure: "Look, I just told you a second ago that it's total suspense here: Nobody knows anything from Boston to Los Angeles, from New York to San Francisco … from Philadelphia to San Diego, via Austin and Reno, we know nothing. ... I've just called friends in Miami and they don't know anything either. … That's all!"

Luckily for the hapless Gosset, his station's ratings weren't riding on his news-gathering skills: Both Gosset and his "presenter" are puppets. And the only overlords to whom they report are the producers of "Les Guignols," France's most irreverent political satire programme.

As Americans squabble over whether their presidential cliff-hanger is a case of democracy at its finest or constitutional confusion, many Europeans are relishing their self-styled role as a sort of transatlantic heckling gallery.

For pundits on this side of the pond, the rare spectacle of a superpower squirming has offered a welcome respite from their own domestic woes -- as well as a distraction from their own festering political debate over a closer European Union.

Humour -- of both the subtle and in-your-face varieties -- has given Europeans a smoke screen for caustic quips about an American election process that many say is woefully out of touch with the popular will.

Viewed through the European looking glass, America comes across as a quirky place with even quirkier citizens.

Witness the title of a cover feature story that ran this week in The Guardian, one of Britain's leading national dailies: "'Only in Florida' -- How America's weirdest state derailed the US election."

The article uses as its point of departure a reference to Stalin's famous quip that it's not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes.

The authors -- who include a Floridian -- marvel that the election of the next U.S. president will be decided in Florida, "America's weird, troubled protuberance in the Caribbean, where a million Cuban exiles still plotting revenge against Castro rub up against Jewish pensioners from Brooklyn, Haitian refugees and a shoal of opportunists, lost souls and part-time Disney employees.

"All of them have been known to act as if under the influence of the local swamp gas."

Developing their theme, the authors observe that Florida is also the state where a man "was charged with shooting his dog because he suspected it of being gay."

In a separate editorial cartoon entitled "Electile Dysfunction," The Guardian portrayed a frustrated Uncle Sam holding a map of Florida in a pose that suggested he might benefit from Viagra.

Another establishment-poking UK publication, Private Eye, summed up its take on the Gore-Bush squabble with a banner headline across this week's cover: "U.S. Election -- Too Close to Care," above a photo of the two rivals about to shake hands at one of their pre-election debates. Two comic-strip-style dialogue bubbles have a smiling Al Gore saying, "It's a complete farce," to which George W. Bush replies, "Yes, one of us is going to be president."

The Internet has also provided a ripe forum for some of the more biting broadsides -- including a mock "Notice of Revocation of Independence," alerting Americans of the British Queen's intention to resume monarchical duties over the former colonies "in the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves. …"

The notice applies to "all states, commonwealths and other territories -- except Utah which (the Queen) does not fancy."

It adds: "Your new Prime Minister (The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85 percent of you who have until now been unaware that there's a world outside your own borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections."

Even a few American-based Web publications have weighed in with their own "international" coverage of the wacky denouement of the American election.

In a story that ran with a Belgrade, Yugoslavia, dateline, The Onion, a satirical Web site, "reported" this week that Serbia's new president, Vojislav Kostunica, had decided to dispatch more than 30,000 peacekeepers to the U.S., "pledging full support to the troubled North American nation as it struggles to establish democracy."

The article "quoted" Kostunica as urging Gore "to acknowledge the will of the people and concede that he has lost the election. Until America's political figures learn to respect the institutions that have been put in place, the nation will never be a true democracy."

Nor does Bush emerge unscathed from the threshing mill of cyberspace.

One e-mailing offers a compendium of misstatements, mangled syntax and malapropisms that have purportedly emanated from Bush's lips -- although many of the quotes have apparently been attributed to other politicians in the past. .

Among the zingers: "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure," "Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child," and "The future will be better tomorrow."

An anecdote on a Russian Web site proposes a marquee 12-round boxing match -- to be held in New York City's Madison Square Garden -- to resolve the presidential imbroglio.

"The box office revenues would be phenomenal. Broadcast across the world, the ratings would be fantastic. Moreover, Americans would be able to take great pride in the victor, who would prove himself to be a real man (unlike Clinton with Monica Lewinsky). -- P.S. There would even be the possibility of a summit showdown with our own Judo master (Russian President Vladimir Putin)."

But others, like stand-up British comic Sean Meo, look well beyond the boxing ring. They say the presidential limbo could have more dire implications for the American electorate -- and the rest of the planet.

"If aliens landed now and asked you to take them to your leader, we'd be in trouble."

Florida voting official's decision next on docket
November 16, 2000
U.S. election dispute worries friends, pleases foes
November 17, 2000
Lance Morrow: Anyone around here seen a president?
November 10, 2000
International elections expert 'amazed' by tight U.S election
November 10, 2000

Private Eye
The Onion
Democratic National Committee
Republican National Committee
Les Guignols (French political satire program)

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