BERLIN – The muddy results of Sunday’s German election left the nation without a chancellor for now. The country’s next leader will be decided by negotiations among the five major parties, each with a frustratingly small slice of a diffused vote. But it’s not too early to conclude that this year’s German election was bad news for the Bush administration.

In 2002, incumbent Chancellor Schroeder made a comeback by catering to anti-Americanism and portraying himself as a principled opponent of President Bush’s war plans in Iraq. He played this card a bit earlier this year, saying Mr. Bush should take the military option “off the table” regarding Iran.

In the final days of the campaign, Mr. Schroeder’s Social Democrat party used a poster with five coffins covered by American flags being loaded into a transport aircraft flanked by a U.S. military honor guard. The slogan is “She would have sent soldiers,” referring to Christian Democratic head Angela Merkel and Iraq.

Finally, Social Democrats have found a part of the Iraq war they like. Surely the American families of the soldiers who gave their lives in battle will be comforted to know their loved one’s deaths were not in vain; the images of their bodies being transported to their final resting place may have helped the Social Democrats keep seats in the legislature.

A staple line of Schroeder’s stump speech is, “As long as we are in office German foreign policy will be made in Berlin and not anywhere else,” suggesting Ms. Merkel would be an American pawn.

Playing to anti-Americanism is clearly a key part of the Schroeder political playbook; his comeback from 21 points down to two points behind the Christian Democrats shows that it still works. Ms. Merkel steadily refused to confront the chancellor on this with any vigor – raising the question of whether a pro-American voice is worth it if it never speaks up.

Tying Ms. Merkel to big, bad America was also a staple of the other campaigns. A poster for a Green Party parliamentarian, Hans-Christian Stroebele, portrayed Ms. Merkel with a “W” crown on her head, a McDonald’s pin on her lapel, and waving American flags. The Greens received about 8% of the vote. Many Social Democratic candidates, including Rolf Schwanitz, linked to Web sites of groups like “Angela? Nein Danke” which portrayed Merkel as Monica Lewinsky, engaged in the Oval Office with President Bush.

One of the big surprise winners of the election appears to be the “Left Party,” which received about 8% of the vote, and should increase to around 50 seats in the Bundestag from 2. How bad are these far left, not-so-ex-Communist guys? Never mind Iraq, never mind Afghanistan, which they want all German troops to leave. These guys are still angry that German troops were used in Kosovo.

The style of the campaigning has been bothersome as well. We’ve seen in America that Democratic scaremongering over Social Security and health care is disturbingly effective. Ms. Merkel has put out extraordinarily detailed plans and been honest about the costs and drawbacks; Mr. Schroeder has made her pay for her honesty. He was thoroughly evasive about any spending cuts in a future government; when the International Herald Tribune created a chart about the candidate’s stands, in the column labeled “budget plan,” Mr. Schroeder’s box just had the one word description, “vague.”

And as if all this wasn’t enough bad news out of Berlin, the final note is that this election has marked a new apex of European Union meddling in member state politics. EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes of the Netherlands came out and endorsed Ms. Merkel (not that it seems to have done her much good), and a few other EU commissioners are talking about taking a more vocal role in politics. To the extent that any EU commissioners are complaining, it is that they feel she endorsed the wrong candidate.

When Ms. Merkel held that large lead, some foreign policy observers hoped a new right-of-center government would bring closer U.S.-German ties. That hope is now dashed. As it is now, the German government opposes using NATO troops to directly challenge Taliban remnants in Afghanistan – citing the fact that hunting Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden, and the rest of the thugs trying to derail democracy to the Afghans “would make its soldiers more likely to face an attack.” An election that strengthened Germany’s anti-American and anti-war left makes it even more unlikely that Berlin will approve aggressive action.

Whether the result of Germany’s negotiations is another term for Schroeder, or a grand, deeply divided coalition headed by Merkel, one should not look to Berlin for better relations anytime soon.

Mr. Geraghty is a contributing editor to National Review.