The good news for Americans tired of being scapegoated as the source of all the world’s problems by foreign politicians is that the German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, still looks set for an involuntary retirement on September 18.

The bad news is that his likely successor, the Christian Democrat Angela Merkel, is no Tony Blair. Nor is she a John Howard. Members of her party have indicated that they’re more likely to agree with the Bush administration, and aim for smoother relations with America – but they haven’t quite ridden to the rescue of America’s unfairly smeared reputation.

Americans love a foreign leader who recognizes our strengths and virtues, like when Mr. Blair gives his full-throated cheer for the American people, their character, and the fundamental nobility of America’s policies to confront dictators and spread democracy.

Unfortunately, the ranks of world leaders are full of second-rate elites who love to tell their constituents that big, bad America is the cause of their grief, and that everything this country does is immoral, destructive, and greedy. Among these would be the German environmental minister, Jurgen Trittin, who waited an entire day after Hurricane Katrina struck to write an op-ed declaring America’s lax policy on global warming as the catalyst for the disaster.

Or Germany’s center-left daily Suddeutsche Zeitung, which declared, “just as Sept. 11 clearly showed that America is vulnerable, it will likely take a couple more hurricanes of the magnitude of Katrina before America changes its appalling environmental and climate policies.”

Polls suggest Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats, or CDU, are leading by a margin of 11-12 points.

It seems likely that a German government led by Ms. Merkel would be less quick to play the blame-America card when its poll numbers need a goose. But there’s little sign that she or the advisers around her are willing to stick out their necks to defend American honor.

Earlier in the campaign, Mr. Schroeder again appealed to his country’s fears and suspicions of America. In an interview with Israeli television, President Bush said that regarding Iran’s nuclear program and potential weapons development, “all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any president.” The chancellor almost immediately began campaigning on the slogan, “Let’s take the military option off the table.” (No word on just how he would prevent the mullahs from becoming a nuclear-armed terrorist state further destabilizing the Middle East.)

Wolfgang Schauble, the foreign policy spokesman of the conservative opposition, took a mild shot at the chancellor, saying Mr. Schroeder “is accepting the fact that the danger of Iran obtaining an atomic bomb is growing … and he is creating the disastrous impressions that the international community is divided.” But Ms. Merkel and a likely foreign minister in a Merkel government, Wolfgang Gerhardt, said their position on Iran was no different from the current German government’s.

This week, Mr. Gerhardt said, “I think that the Iran negotiations are not yet a topic for the Security Council, rather the negotiations should be revived. The British attempt in the EU presidency to say that we have no alternative but to try again with negotiations is correct.”

In short: promise lots more carrots, but don’t even mention the stick.

The established parties are also being challenged by a new left-wing populist party – creatively called “The Left” – that is demanding an immediate German withdrawal from Afghanistan. Never mind any current battlefield of the war on terror – members of this essentially pacifist party are still upset about German troops being sent to Kosovo.

One can understand Ms. Merkel playing it safe, and not riling up a staunchly anti-Iraq-war German public. But there are few indicators that this German election is occurring amid a worldwide war on terrorists. The campaign strategies remind one a bit of John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty – “Don’t bring up the war.” Foreign policy played a marginal role in the candidates’ first debate.

Ms. Merkel’s biggest move on this issue has been a call for beefing up German laws on expelling foreigners for hate speech. “Those who don’t want to obey our laws and preach hatred in mosques … have no right to stay in this country and must be expelled,” she said.

That sounds a bit Blair-esque, but Ms. Merkel ought to do more – if not now, then soon. German public attitudes won’t change by themselves; someone needs to make the case that the problems of the world do not radiate outward from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Today the anti-Americans from George Galloway to Al-Jazeera to Iran’s mullahs to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are screaming in a deafening rage. Right now, America needs friends, and it needs them to speak up.

Mr. Geraghty, a contributing editor to National Review, will be covering the German elections later this month from Berlin.