Mythbuster
March 16th, 2008It’s late and I have had a long day. I’d like to give you a nice and detailed perspective on Barack Obama’s pastor but I’m going to spare us a dissertation when it can be summarized in one word: bad. It is bad for the Obama campaign that he spent twenty years at Wright’s Church on the Southside of Chicago and it will be a political embarrassment from here on out: “if he was there for twenty years, why didn’t he leave sooner, if he was so disgusted by the hatespeech?” It’s not a campaign sinker, on its face — or at least not until something really bad comes out from that Church — but it is a negative and an embarrassment. What I really want to talk about, however, is a myth found here:
It was a decision that only President Bush had the power to make: At about 9 a.m. on March 19, 2003, in the Situation Room in the basement of the West Wing of the White House, he gave the “execute order” to begin Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Now, five years later, the consequences of that act will soon be beyond Bush’s grasp. In 10 months, they’ll land on the desk of his successor. Thanks in part to the Iraq war, the next U.S. president — Republican or Democrat, black or white, man or woman — will take office with America’s power, prestige and popularity in decline, according to bipartisan reports, polls and foreign observers.
The United States is still, by far, the strongest nation in the world, overall, and the only remaining Superpower. It will be this way for several years, so the idea that we have lost our power or are significantly losing power is a flawed bit of conventional wisdom and nothing more. You know who has lost power, prestige and influence? George W. Bush. The next American President will not, and to tell you the truth, Bush has plenty of power and influence still, especially abroad, but not in his own country anymore or with regard to Iraq. There’s this idea out there that America is sinking into the quagmire of Iraq but that is not true for the nation — only the sitting President, and that is only temporary. America is quite influential and powerful, still, with much criticism from leaders around the world coming for domestic consumption and without conviction. That the next President is going to rebuild our relationship with the world is absurd. Even after our bitter disagreements in Europe over Iraq, for instance, we are still working hand-in-hand with Germany and France, to name a couple of key “rivals,” on economic and national issues such as, say, Iran.
It’s all well and good to talk about Old Glory fading, but the American state is doing well on an international level. We are not alone on this Earth, I promise.