"Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party defeated the long entrenched Liberal Party in Canadian elections on Monday," the New York Times reports. "A Conservative victory is a striking turn in the country's politics and is likely to improve Canada's strained relations with the Bush administration."

But it wasn't supposed to be this way. Remember after the March 14, 2004 Spanish election when voters replaced Prime Minister José María Aznar with the Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero? Liberal editorialists and politicians claimed that other pro-Bush leaders were likely to follow Aznar's fate. The president's misadventure in Iraq had sparked a wave of anti-Americanism that would also topple other governments in Australia and Britain. But Australia's John Howard won a fourth term, while Tony Blair was elected to an unprecedented third. Subsequently, Germany's Gerhard Schröder ran on an anti-American platform, as did Canada's Paul Martin. And guess what? They lost.

No doubt President Bush will gladly welcome Prime Minister Stephen Harper to the White House, just as he did when Germany's Merkel paid a visit a short time ago.