Well Doc.S, I'd say I enjoyed reading your post.
Then again I think there was another effect. I think the European endorsement of Kerry backfired because of the European attitude towards the US in general. I have noticed (as it's not hard) that a great deal of Americans actually feel that the French and the Germans are actually enemies of sorts. For right or wrong is irrelevent here.
So as they endorsed Kerry, and Kerry went over and said a few things in French he distanced himself with the American neutrals.
If Americans feel bad for what their president did, they want to feel and talk about it themselves, they don't want some Frenchman with his nose pointing to the sun going on about "you foolish Americans... now that you know you were wrong and we were right, you should listen to us."
Actually an Oxford professor did this to try to convince people in Ohio it seems (according to an article I read on
www.slate.msn.com) by sending letters about this to people's homes. Clearly infuriated the Americans.
So the rest of us can learn something from this too. Let's mind our own business.
We got 4 more years of this guy so we got to make the most of it. He's got an image to fix. We've got some alliances to mend because whether we like it or not, we actually still need America.