Bermuda has received lavish praise from the influential Wall Street Journal newspaper after a lobbying effort by Premier Alex Scott and Finance Minister Paula Cox.

The newspaper hailed the Island as “a model for development that ought to be praised” and the “opposite of shady”.

Mr. Scott and Ms Cox met the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal in New York on May 6, the day after meeting leading US politicians in Washington to counter “myths” about the Island spread by US Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry.

The following morning, the newspaper published a 1,100 word article by reporter Mary Anastasia O'Grady saying Bermuda has been the victim of presidential politics.

“What happens when, instead of playing the role of victim, a multiracial island succeeds as a world-class economic competitor and a society of laws, bringing about conditions where children are fed, clothed and educated, and misery is the exception, not the rule?” she wrote.

“One might expect celebration among American politicians. One would be wrong. Bermuda is learning this lesson the hard way. By its geography alone, the British colony might have become just another island basket case.

“On the northern edge of the Sargasso Sea, it is relatively isolated and a target for hurricanes, even though it cannot claim the tropical weather of the Caribbean tourist destinations farther south.