Richard Chesnoff writes about the primitive, irrational hatred of America and President Bush that dominates the political discourse of Europe: Boy, do they hate Bush here. (Hat tip: Power Line.)

The 43rd President of the United States may have won a powerful vote of confidence from his countrymen, but an awful lot of sour Europeans - not to mention a significant number of bitter Asians, Africans and Middle Easterners - still consider him an international bad guy.

It’s not just the war in Iraq. It is the President’s very American sense of decisive, strong leadership; of placing U.S. security (and that of the entire free world) above diplomatic niceties. In Europe’s twisted thinking, Bush is nothing more than the epitome of the “Ugly American,” the arrogant, gun-toting cowboy many Europeans and other non-Americans love to hate out of their own sense of inferiority, jealousy, bitterness and often downright ignorance of facts and figures.

Whatever the case, no American President in recent history has been so vilified - especially by the Europeans. Even the 60th anniversary of the American-led D-Day invasion was cause for despicable attacks on Bush. One French magazine had the gall to question whether the American President should even come to Normandy for the anniversary celebrations.

Ironically, says pro-American French Parliamentarian Pierre Lellouche, Europeans “convinced themselves that President Bush was some sort of ‘temporary disease,’ ” something that would last one term.

The world’s oldest terrorist mass murderer, though, is admired and idolized, and when he gets sick, Europeans build a shrine:

The makeshift shrine for ailing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in front of the Percy Military Teaching hospital in Clamart outside Paris is seen Monday, Nov. 8, 2004. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)