Politics

Here’s something to think about: The Pew Foundation and The Council on Foreign Affairs have just completed their survey on the American public’s view of the world. America?¢?‚¬?„¢s Place In The World 2005.

Looks like America is headed back to its isolationist home. The post World War ll engagement in world affairs was an aberration. World powers always oscillate between going it alone and multi-lateralism, and reality always intrudes into the policy maker’s vision. Unfortunately the past few years have shown the limits of America’s ability to go it alone: it has failed [or barely succeeded depending on your politics] to subdue a middling nation, and to suppress an insurgency that cannot be anywhere near as well funded as the American military. The world now knows the limits. So does the American public.

Add that to the dawning reality that the American standard of living is highly [if not totally] dependent on international relationships — sometimes negatively as in outsourcing etc. — and you have a potent isolationist brew: we hate everyone out there because we can’t boss them anymore, they are ungrateful for all our ‘help and aid’, and now they hit us beneath the belt by ‘stealing’ our jobs.

Neither political party has an agenda that maps to that reality: they have failed to persuade Americans that the world counts for much other than being a source of danger. If you can’t bully anyone anymore, and you don’t want to play ball with a whole bunch of argumentative foreigners, what else can you do but to pick up and go home?

Stansfield Turner, former CIA Director hammered Cheney in a television interview in London: CNN.com – Ex-CIA chief: Cheney ‘VP for torture’ – Nov 18, 2005. Looks like we are not alone in thinking that Cheney’s pursuit of loopholes in anti-torture legislation is beyond disgusting. It’s downright immoral. Pity Cheney doesn’t care, he’s cruising right along screwing up American security, image, moral standing, and what not. I am beginning to think he works for one of those central Asian countries where the Soviet style is still fashionable. Think about it: he steals elections, he lies about policy, and he advocates torture. He’d fit right in. Sad thing is that he’s one of ours!

The special investigator in the infamous Plamegate affair has told the court he need a new Grand Jury. Presumably that means his investigation is ongoing and that people such as Karl Rove, who dodged the bullet up until now may still be indicted. The news is here: Top News Article | Reuters.co.uk. This, plus the astonishing revelation by Bob Woodward that he knew about Plame for two years and that he learned her name from someone other than Libby, and before Libby told anyone, has stirred the whole mess right up again. Despite the right wing attempts to downplay this story, Plamegate is a blot on the administration. If for no other reason than Bush said clearly that anyone involved in the leaking should step down from his staff. He made all sorts of stern announcements about cleaning out the White House, but has done nothing to get rid of the rot. Rove, Cheney et al, all of whom have played a part in the leak are all still there. So I guess Bush didn’t really mean he’d clean house. Looks like he lied to us yet again, but heck it’s only a matter of national security!

Well I suppose it was inevitable that Dick Cheney would have to follow the leader and come out swinging. His speech, as reported here: DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2005?‚® is full of misdirection and typical Orwellian nonsense. It takes my breath away to read Cheney’s attempt to turn history on its head. It was the administration that mislead, lied and connived, and yet, according to Cheney, it is those who point that out who are apparently guilty of the lying. So this is what the leadership of the country has come to: a Soviet style attempt to whitewash a failing [or failed] regime change that they packaed and sold to a frightened nation as part of the eternal war on terrorism. It reeks of the very worst kind of Soviet era manipulation. Here we are in Iraq with an overstretched army whose morale is declining, whose strength is being sapped by the very people who wrap themselves in the flag and who recklessly sent the troops, under-prepared, under-equipped and under-manned into a country that represented no imminenet threat to the America. The gall of Cheney et al is awe inspiring. The nerve outrageous. The lies rampant. The ethics non-existent. The post-war corruption matched only by the pre-war miscalculation. The Bush regime is naked before us: what an ugly blot on our history they have become. Yet this Cheney speech is only the beginning: they will ratchet up the noise as much as they can. Let’s hope their opponents keep their nerve and that they can be as relentless in their pursuit of Cheney as he is in spewing out his lies.

Just to follow up on George Bush’s ratings, here is a summary from pollingreport.com:Bush: Job Ratings. Makes for ugly reading if you’re George!!