Wolcott: "The Slippier Slope" (foreign relations, economy, election)

[Inland]

http://www.jameswolcott.com/

Slipperier Slope
Posted by James Wolcott
Where's the fun in being the World's Sole Remaining Superpower if you can't bust your buttons and zippers with an inflated sense of entitlement, and order everyone around with a Sinatra snap of the fingers? Problem is, the US is so dependent on the kindness of foreign bankers and businesses that it can't lean on other countries with its former authority, especially with the war in Iraq demonstrating for all to see the full scope of American foolhardiness, waste, ineptitude, and crony corruption.


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More and more, I'm sensing that the 2006 midterms, for better or worse, will be a Lou Dobbs election. (No single forum was more instrumental for aborting the Dubai ports deal than his.) The midterms will be fought not over cultural-war values like gay marriage or abortion, but over the sorts of economic and sovereignty issues Dobbs hammers on about every weeknight on CNN: the squeeze on the middle class; Washington's runaway budgets and the explosion in deficit; the gutting of pensions; the hollowing-out of America's industrial base; the war over immigration; globalization and free trade. I don't think all of this is bad: Dobbs' program is one of the few on cable that addresses the plight of workers (as opposed to maximizing investment gains and extending corporate power--the mandate of Larry Kudlow's CNBC show), the negative impact of globalization, and the frustration over the influx of illegal immigrants. (You don't have to agree with Dobbs' tone or solutions to recognize the frustration in the Western states particularly has been bubbling hot, and has been too long ignored by the media-political elite.) But Dobbs also runs a regular segment on China called "Red Storm" that's like a blast from the Cold War past, and intended to raise alarm. It's like something out of the National Review circa 1958. One of the great paradoxes of our age is how the US can be so dimly complacent and so sharply fearful in the same breath. We're in a constant state of sluggish agitation, worked up into a righteous state of indifference.

[kenny blankenship]

1. Superpower. Not anymore.

Just thought I'd throw that in. Clearly Bush has demonstrated that the limits of U.S. power are a lot more confining than people thought before he went on his murderous tantrum around the world. Clearly that power is smaller than was thought, much smaller than Bush and his brainless ilk believed, and with him still in charge it's getting smaller by the day.

[Inland]

2. Pissed away.

There's limits to everything, even a superpower. Bush was asked by a student how they can afford to pay for the war and their education, and Bush said, "The US can do more than one thing at once". Well, after a while, all those "one things" add up, and Bushbot's perspective that the military attack is the only power that counts is being thwarted by countries from China to UAE, all while our vaunted military is being tied down and degraded.