BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. This week, the White House came under attack from its former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, who had served in four administrations,and who charged the Bush team with slighting the war on terror for the war in Iraq. Clarke has gained some extraordinary name recognition. This week, a poll by the Pew Research for People and the Press found that nearly 9 in 10 of a little over a thousand Americans surveyed said that they had heard of him. Of those polled, 42 percent said they'd heard a lot about his claims, and 47 percent said they'd heard a little. Clarke appeared on 60 Minutes, Charlie Rose and Larry King, but most notably, on the televised congressional proceeding of the 9-11 Commission, now investigating how the attacks of that day came to pass. Many Americans tuned in, but as United Press International editor Martin Walker told us, there was also an eager audience in Europe and the Middle East.

MARTIN WALKER: Well, the European and the Middle Eastern press have been fascinated by it. Al Ahram, the Egyptian daily, was noting today that critics of the Bush administration have long said that it has had a credibility problem, particularly over the allegation of weapons of mass destruction. Now that credibility problem has been intensified with possibly dire effect for President Bush's hopes of re-election by the proceedings of the 9-11 Commission, and in particular by the claims of the former counter-terrorism chief, Mr. Clarke.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: That hasn't been a great departure for that newspaper, though, has it?

MARTIN WALKER:It hasn't, no. But I think it pretty much sets the tone. Al Ahram is, in some ways, the Times of the Arab world. It's the, the paper with a very long and distinguished history. But it was also interesting, I thought, the way Le Monde put it today. They went straight into the, the political implications. They have a, a long article saying that Richard Clarke has become public enemy number one for the White House. "National security and what President Bush calls the war against terrorism are the sole area in which President Bush is judged favorably by the majority of Americans. On all other topics, from the economy to education, his side of the equation is lower than 50 percent. This is the context that explains the fury of the Bush team in their reactions to the statements that Mr. Clarke has been making, because they see in them the possibility of Bush's strongest card being diluted."

BROOKE GLADSTONE: What about the papers that have been traditionally the friends of the Bush administration in, say, Britain?

MARTIN WALKER:It's very, very striking that they have started to withdraw their support. The Spectator, which is a very conservative weekly in Britain, but a very influential one, says this: "If Clarke is right, then the so-called war on terror was no more than an excuse for an invasion that the Bush administration was determined to carry out in any case. Tony Blair becomes, at best, a mug; at worst, an accomplice to a massive deceit." You're seeing the kind of arguments that used to be made by the anti-war liberal left and so on, now being taken up increasingly by the center and by the, the moderate conservatives.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:I thought it was very interesting that the French and Arab papers that you quoted earlier offered some rather familiar political analysis of the fallout from Richard Clarke's book and the 9-11 Commission. I guess they're all looking ahead towards the election.

MARTIN WALKER: Yes, indeed. There was a remarkable editorial in my old newspaper, The Guardian, in Britain which said: "It's clear that Mr. Bush is now beatable and that Mr. Kerry is the best choice the Democrats could have made to beat him. American voters have done themselves a great favor. If they'd picked Howard Dean, Mr. Bush would have made mincemeat of him. The free world has never had a stronger interest in the result of an American election than it has in the defeat of George Bush. Senator Kerry carries the hopes not just of millions of Americans, but of millions of British well-wishers, not to mention those of nations throughout Europe and the world.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:I think the Guardian represents a number of papers on the left. Closer to the center or even towards the right of the spectrum is the assessment of Kerry still the same?

MARTIN WALKER: Well, yes, indeed. Le Figaro, which is a conservative newspaper in France, had a rather witty editorial that said: "Do not say it too loudly. In fact, just whisper it among ourselves, but we think that John Kerry is a friend of France, and probably a friend of Europe as well."

BROOKE GLADSTONE: That may not help Kerry.

MARTIN WALKER:It might not, as the Russian paper Izvestia noted. Izvestia wrote that "for most conservative Americans, the word European has become a term of abuse, seen from the point of view of 100 percent red-blooded Americans, Kerry's background has a number of weaknesses. His wife is Portuguese. He spent his childhood in Norway, Germany, Switzerland and France. How, then, could he possibly have avoided being afflicted by the spirit of European liberalism?"

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Martin, you've been reporting on European media for us for so long. Do you think they're taking a greater interest in the campaign for the American president earlier than they have before?

MARTIN WALKER: Oh, yes. I think most people think the stakes are that much higher, partly because of globalization; partly because of the highly emotional impact of the war; but also because President Bush, for most newspapers in the rest of the world has a kind of a difficult track record. Even before the Iraq war broke out, don't forget, he was being widely criticized for his stands on global warming, on the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court, and so on. And, as a result, there is a view that I see spreading even among America's traditional friends in the center/right press that President Bush has really not been a particularly comfortable custodian of the free world that an American president traditionally has led.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Martin, thanks again.

MARTIN WALKER: Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Martin Walker is the editor of UPI. [MUSIC]