The Sunday Telegraph is today running a <a href=”http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/27/wbush27.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/02/27/ixhome.html

“>report that “President Bush’s speech to European leaders last week was toned down at the last moment to avoid giving his support to the proposed EU constitution, after a strenuous lobbying campaign by conservative activists in Washington.” I’ve no idea how true this is, but if there is anything to the report that the President was even thinking of giving his support to the proposed constitution it shows that someone in the administration is not doing his (or, perhaps, her) homework.

Meanwhile in a report in its weekend edition the Financial Times had almost the opposite to say: “By coming out in favor of a “strong Europe” at the seat of European government in Brussels, Mr. Bush sided with the realists and against the neoconservatives who have a wary view of an integrated Europe.”

In some ways it is the latter report that is the more interesting. The Financial Times is a reliable mouthpiece for the Brussels bureaucracy, and we can assume that what it is saying reflects their spin. The Brussels line will thus, clearly, fall into two parts. The first is the assertion, reassuring to American’s remaining allies on the continent, that the US is comfortable with further integration, the second is the claim, designed to cement the constitution’s appeal amongst the majority of Europeans suspicious of the US, that it is those sinister ‘neocons’ who are at the bottom of efforts to thwart its passing.

Mark Steyn, meanwhile, has his own take on the situation. He’s too pessimistic about Europe’s prospects for my taste, but this is too good not to repeat:

“The new EU ”constitution,” for example, would be unrecognizable as such to any American. I had the opportunity to talk with former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing on a couple of occasions during his long labors as the self-declared and strictly single Founding Father. He called himself ”Europe’s Jefferson,” and I didn’t like to quibble that, constitution-wise, Jefferson was Europe’s Jefferson — that’s to say, at the time the U.S. Constitution was drawn up, Thomas Jefferson was living in France. Thus, for Giscard to be Europe’s Jefferson, he’d have to be in Des Moines, where he’d be doing far less damage.”

Ha!