By Vanessa Overbeck

By Vanessa Overbeck

Many foreign nations, all across the globe are distressed by the outcome of the American elections. Cubans speak of President Bush’s reelection as a “disgrace” and Mexican critics suggest that the “intellectual poverty” of Americans favored the incumbent president.

Is this true? Did Americans fail the rest of the world by electing Bush to a second term? Only time will tell. But it’s easy in the chaos of an election to forget that as the citizens of the only superpower, we control the fate of the world.

Now that we’ve studied the ballots, deliberated and cast our votes, we must hope that our heads and our hearts were clear. And with the same sense of responsibility and patriotism that led us to the polls, the winners and losers of this election must address the concerns of their opposition. There is a middle path between the extremes of our political parties that Americans must walk if we want a just world.

Citizens of other nations, like those of Antigua, agree and observe that while Americans weighed the issue of international terrorism heavier than domestic affairs in their reelection of Bush, the majority of U.S. voters have a desire for political change. Fred Mitchell, Bahamian foreign minister, joins the rest of the world in encouraging Bush to “reunite America and its relations with the other countries of the world.”

However, some Europeans are glad to see Bush reelected to a second term, because “now he can fix the mess he made in his first term.” In the spirit of this sentiment, I hope that Bush will push harder to train Iraqi troops and bring our soldiers home sooner; that the concerns of our foreign allies will weigh heavily on his mind when he decides foreign policy; and that the needs of the American people will be met before those of special interest groups.