An American in Rome e-mailed earlier in the week:

I attended an embassy party last night. Speaking to European diplomats, you get a gist of two things:
1) They are terrified that the Spanish elections, and subsequent announcement of a pull-out of Iraq will lead to terrorist attacks around election dates in Europe – and they are terrified that it will, like Spain, lead to appeasement votes.
2) John Kerry does not have any fans over here. Although most of the diplomats hate Bush, and hate the Iraq intervention, the following quotes were used “You just can’t take him seriously”; “He’s sort of a joke, isn’t he?”; “Can anyone actually believe anything he says?” Most diplomats seriously doubt any member of their governments have had any contacts with him or his campaign.