Not all of Europe was unhappy that Bush was re-elected

You may have seen this Michael Novak column in NRO:Bolstered by Bush
Italy’s “House of Liberty” cheers for W

Since Michael has told us much about it already, I found it particularly interesting because this column mentions the sacking of the Italian candidate for the Justice Ministry of the European Commission, Rocco Buttiglione.

The panel conducting Rocco's hearing had never asked Romano Prodi or any other Italian politician, especially of the Left, what he personally thought about homosexual acts. A true answer, if it took the form of "I believe in civil tolerance, but personally I think such acts are not moral," would have landed any politician of Right or Left in deep political trouble with a significant plurality of Italian voters. That may be why the question has never been asked until now. It was asked of Buttiglione, and in such an aggressive and unexpected way that many in Italy are saying publicly that this was a deliberate set-up, engineered by laicists in Brussels still determined to "ecraser l'infame" — to erase every vestige of Christian faith — from their new laicist Europe.

But I also found this good news....
One striking thing about Italy these days, compared to 30 years ago, is how many former leftists have awakened to the illusions of the Left, and begun flocking to the center-right. Nearly every one mentioned by name in this article is one such, and the numbers keep growing, almost exponentially, among writers and other intellectuals. Everything leftist is increasingly being questioned — economic orthodoxy often first of all, but now leftist cultural politics, too. Even those not prepared to go all the way to the center-right, at least on all issues, are raising tough questions.

Could it be that even in Europe, the people are beginning to lose their love for liberalism?

Mr. Novak seems to think that this could be the start of something good:
What I conclude after this visit, more powerfully than ever, is that important new currents so visible in the victory of George W. Bush are also beginning to affect very distant places, and that great spiritual changes are beginning to display their first sprouts: a profoundly new vision of our own secular history, more open to religion than formerly; a new attention to the family and to the traditional morality on which its health depends; and a rethinking of fundamental economic principles concerning taxation, state power, and welfare programs. The notion is also gaining traction that the ideas of the Left belong to the 1950s, if not earlier, while those of Bush and others like him point to a new and more creative future.