Mending Fences

Whoever succeeds George w. Bush is going to have his hands full cleaning up after the Wrecking Crew. Literally everything Bush/Cheney have touched has turned toxic. The US economy, its foreign policy, its military, its environmental policies - the lot. That's why you don't let the ignorant - like Bush and Palin - into the top ranks of your government. There's simply too much damage they can cause before anyone can stop them.

The next president already had atop his agenda mending fences with America's traditional allies. Germany's Merkel and France's Sarkozy had already shown themselves amenable to American overtures. Of course that was then, this is now.

Whatever goodwill George w. Bush managed to restore in his last two years in office has been thoroughly trashed in the current economic meltdown. Read any of the English-language European papers. Read accounts of the leaders' session at the U.N.

Even America's closest allies (Boss Harp excepted) are furious with the United States. It's as though Washington had sent them shiploads of counterfeit currency. France, even Germany are feeling the sting of bogus commercial paper floated by American securities giants. Worse they see the global economy headed for a crunch caused by wantonly reckless American regulatory negligence.

America's Savings & Loan fiasco was internalized. So was the Enron/Worldcom corporate fraud scandal. The Dot.Com debacle was largely confined within the U.S. The "Made on Bush's Watch" meltdown is not only much larger but vastly more widespread and its impact reaches to the core of the global economy.

Europeans are hopping mad about this. Latin and South Americans are hopping mad. Asians are hopping mad. Everyone, it seems, except Stephen Harper, is hopping mad. That Steve stands out is kind of curious. He's not only extraordinarily silent on the subject, he doesn't even want to discuss it with Canadian voters. Better yet, he's adopted John McCain's line that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." What's the message in that, folks?

Steve, one of the core fundamentals of our economy is a strong US economy. When the US economy heads into the tank, the economy of our one and only major trading partner is in the tank. When our sole major trading partner goes in the tank, the fundamentals of our economy are no longer strong. You know that Steve so why lie about the biggest immediate threat to Canada's economy? This is no time for fanciful tales, Steve.

But I digress. Just how angry are America's friends in France and Germany? Here's the take from Spiegel Online:

"Even America's closest allies are distancing themselves -- first and foremost the German chancellor. When push came to shove in the past, Angela Merkel had always come down on the side of the United States.

...There was no mention of loyalty and friendship last Monday. Merkel stood in the glass-roofed entrance hall of one of the German parliament's office buildings in Berlin and prepared her audience of roughly 1,000 businesspeople from all across Germany for the foreseeable consequences of the financial crisis. It was a speech filled with concealed accusations and dark warnings.

Merkel talked about a "distribution of risk at everyone's expense" and the consequences for the "economic situation in the coming months and possibly even years." Most of all, she made it clear who she considers the true culprit behind the current plight. "The German government pointed out the problems early on," said the chancellor, whose proposals to impose tighter international market controls failed repeatedly because of US opposition. "Some things can be done at the national level," she said, "but most things have to be handled internationally."

The German magazine contends that America, as we've known it for six decades, is kaput:

"This is no longer the muscular and arrogant United States the world knows, the superpower that sets the rules for everyone else and that considers its way of thinking and doing business to be the only road to success.

A new America is on display, a country that no longer trusts its old values and its elites even less: the politicians, who failed to see the problems on the horizon, and the economic leaders, who tried to sell a fictitious world of prosperity to Americans.

Also on display is the end of arrogance. The Americans are now paying the price for their pride."

The author contends that the Bush Doctrine of perpetual American omnipotence is now in ashes scattered around Bush's feet. As Reagan transformed the United States from the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation, Bush has completed the job, transforming his country from the sole superpower that he inherited from Clinton into a global pariah scorned even by its closest allies.

Can this be undone? Certainly not by John McCain. He still believes in an America long past. This problem is way over his head. Can Obama undo this? Perhaps in part but I doubt that there's anything in his playbook that can restore America to the pride of place it enjoyed so recently during the Clinton era. That said, he has to do as much as he can. This is a tough pill to swallow for the "We're Number One" American people. Reality won't come easy.