Fading Light
Mark Steyn has a must read column today in the Chicago Sun-Times. He takes a look at the Democrat's behavior recently and reminds us that there are other people in the world making decisions, plots and plans. Those schemes take into account what they see on the global news networks. They can draw their conclusions on what America is willing to do based what CNN is beaming out 24/7. And the Democrats are not sending out a pretty picture.
Everything's difficult, isn't it? In the Democratic presidential candidates' debate, Sen. Barack Obama was asked what he personally was doing to save the environment, and replied that his family was "working on" changing their light bulbs.
Is this the new version of the old joke? How many senators does it take to "work on" changing a light bulb? One to propose a bipartisan commission. One to threaten to de-fund the light bulbs. One to demand the impeachment of Bush and Cheney for keeping us all in the dark. One to vote to pull out the first of the light bulbs by fall of this year with a view to getting them all pulled out by the end of 2008.
In 1914, on the eve of the Great War, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey observed, "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." Whether he was proposing a solution to global warming is unclear. But he would be impressed to hear that nine decades later the lights are going out all over Washington.
This week, both the House and the Senate voted for defeat in Iraq. That's to say, Congress got tired of waiting for deadbeat insurgents to get their act together and inflict devastating military humiliation on U.S. forces. So America's legislators have voted to mandate the certainty of defeat. They want the withdrawal of American forces to begin this October, which is a faintly surreal concept: Watching CNN International around the world, many viewers unversed in America's constitutional arrangements will have been puzzled by the spectacle of a nation giving six months' notice of surrender. But the cannier types in the presidential palaces will have drawn their own conclusions.
For example, as Congress was voting, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would withdraw from the post-Cold War arrangements of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty in protest at American plans to install missile defense systems on the Continent.
The damage of all of this to the US is real and will have real consequences. Hillary Clinton wants to tell us that the role of the US in the world is diminished because of the current administration. I'd say it is diminished by the behavior of the Democratic-led US Congress. It is not all about the US. There are others watching. And they are seeing weakness and a lack of will. They make their decisions based on what they are seeing. The lights are going out, alright.
Politics, World news | Gaius Sunday, 29 April , 2007
By Dave Schuler, Sunday, 29 April , 2007 @ 11:59 am
How many Obamas does it take to change a light bulb?