The Bush Effect in Serbia

The pro-Western coalition’s surprisingly strong showing came just three months after protesters outraged by Kosovo’s Feb. 17 independence declaration set fire to part of the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade.

That anger had stoked expectations of an electoral backlash and a Radical victory that would have squelched Serbia’s efforts to prepare for eventual EU membership. The Radicals had vowed to steer the country away from the West and toward Russia, and openly defy international demands for the arrest of Gen. Ratko Mladic and other fugitive war crimes suspects.

Michele Malkin has more including this about Russia:

It’s one breathtaking defeat after another for the failed KGB regime of Vladimir Putin. First NATO moves decisively towards missile defense and admission of Ukraine and Georgia (both countries have recently repudiated ties with Russia in national elections), and now Russia can’t even hold on to its “little brother” Serbia. At home and abroad, Putin’s policies bring only misery and humiliation to the people of Russia, the same neo-Soviet bitterness with which they are already well acquainted.

But I thought Bush had destroyed America's standing in the world. Strange how all these nations elect leaders that go out of their way to praise and promise to have closer ties to us when our standing is so low.
DKK
Michelle Malkin -- Respected abroad: surprising Serbian elections yield another ally