From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

Bob Garfield is away.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Often on this program, we check in with experts to see how Bush administration policies are playing in the overseas press.

On the move toward war in Iraq, there seemed to be little but skepticism around the world.

But then on September 12th, President

Bush went to the United Nations. And on the 16th, Saddam Hussein relented on weapons inspections.

And then this week, British Prime Minister Tony Blair released a hefty report intended to show the

threat, the Iraqi leader posed to the world. Joining us now as Bill Falk, editor-in-chief

of the Week magazine, his staff spends their week watching the international press, and he's here

to tell us if the world's press is warming up to the idea of war. Bill, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Brooke. I'm glad to be here. In general, before we get to the specific countries, any common threads?

Do you think that the appearance by Bush at the UN did create a kind of unifying effect?

It's been a partial success.

Bush disarmed some of the critics who were in high dudgeon about his unilateralism by just going to the UN, just walking in the

doors. And there was some, I think, palpable relief in the UN that the U.S. was not just going

to careen off into this war without listening to any of our traditional allies. England's

Prime Minister, Tony Blair, released a 50-page anti-Saddam dossier this week. How did his local press react to that?

And then how did the rest of Europe? There was a lot of skepticism and even some hoarse laughs.

I mean, he was compared quite unfavorably to Churchill. And one commentator noted that he needed to practice his deep bulldog growl that next time he should show up with a Hamburg and a watch

chain. And Boris Johnson in the Daily Telegraph, which is actually a more conservative, often

pro-American newspaper, laughed at the whole argument about Saddam wanting to procure plutonium

...