World Media: End of the Era of U.S. Dominance
As the U.S. media scrutinize the Wall Street-Main Street implications of the financial crisis and the political effects of the bailout, some foreign journalists are delivering a larger message: The end of U.S. economic and political dominance in the world is at hand.
The Guardian of the United Kingdom proclaims this in no uncertain terms:
“„Our gaze might be on the markets melting down, but the upheaval we are experiencing is more than a financial crisis, however large. Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power is being altered irrevocably. The era of U.S. global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over.
Under the headline “The End of Arrogance,” the highly influential German magazine Der Spiegel asserts that “this is no longer the muscular and arrogant United States the world knows” and finds tangible evidence of America’s decline in President Bush’s physical appearance:
“„George W. Bush has grown old, erratic and rosy in the eight years of his presidency. Little remains of his combativeness or his enthusiasm for physical fitness. On this sunny Tuesday morning in New York, even his hair seemed messy and unkempt, his blue suit a little baggy around the shoulders, as Bush stepped onto the stage, for the eighth time, at the United Nations General Assembly. … Bush was a laughing stock in the gray corridors of the UN.
The Japan Times points out a “bright side” of America’s economic woes, saying that “the United States will probably now have to lecture the world a lot less on economic issues.” The result, it continues, will be a reduction in “global rhetorical warming.”
Perhaps this was Bush’s secret solution to climate change all along?
