US election fires up passions for or against Bush.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Amando Doronila

NO AMERICAN presidential election in the past four decades has aroused more intense international interest and partisanship than the current neck-and-neck race for the White House between US President George W. Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry.

Many world leaders have taken sides, and leading newspapers around the globe have discarded neutrality.

The presidential contest has fired up so much passion-for or against Bush-that much of the rest of the world is in a mood to intervene, as though the US election has become a global referendum on Bush's war on terrorism more than it is an American people's political exercise.

The election is being closely watched internationally because it is being held with America in the midst of war-which is in many ways also a war involving many countries allied with it.

Historically, Americans had closed ranks when they were at war-as in World War II-or when they were confronted by life-and-death crisis, as in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis involving the Soviet Union.