Over at Teekay’s

According to the Transatlantic Trends for 2005 just published by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and available here, Republicans and Europeans are the better Democrats: while 74 percent of Europeans support the idea that the EU should help establish democracy in other countries, only 51 percent of Americans agreed with the idea that the U.S. should do so. (I have a feeling the percentage might even be lower if they were asked whether the EU should promote democracy.) But here’s the interesting bit. Asked the same question — should it be the role of the U.S. to help establish democracy in other countries — 76 percent of Republicans but only 43 percent of Democrats said yes.

In other words, half of all Democrats think the U.S. should not promote democracy abroad.

This means two things: a lot of Democrats are jackasses who don’t give a damn about what’s going on abroad and would rather not do anything about improving people’s lives elsewhere than strengthen the president’s hand even marginally.

It also means that the Republicans have managed to give democracy promotion a bad name: they have turned it into the equivalent of “we’re about to whack you, buddy.” But at least they got the theory right — which is more than we can say about the non-Democratic half of the Democratic party.

Strange times we live in.