Hypocrites-R-US

Obama has gotten flack in recent days for saying things that seem to suggest that he's not "proud" to be an American. Essentially, what Obama has said, is that in some ways, America used to be better. We used to have a voice in world affairs that was respected, and that people could trust came from good intentions, even when we screwed up.

The Bushies have taken that away from us. After 8 years, nobody in the world is drinking the kool-aid anymore. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we have no credibility, and we have a president who doesn't seem to be self-aware enough to know that people see us differently now.

Here's Andrew Sullivan talking about this in the context of the Russia v. Georgia conflict, and comparing it to our invasion of Iraq.

"The point here is not that the invasions are obviously morally equivalent. The point is that the line between American actions in the world and Russia's are no longer as stark as they once were. Once you trash the international system, declare yourself above the law and even the most basic of international conventions against war crimes, you have forfeited the kind of moral authority that the US once had. Bush and his cronies speak as if none of this has happened. Their rigid, absolutist denial even of the bleeding obvious allows them to preach to the world about international norms that, when they would have constrained American actions, were derided as quaint and irrelevant. You really cannot have it both ways."

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/everyones-a-cri.html

This is very bad for us, but very bad for the Western world too. Which is one of the major reasons why Europeans are so excited about Obama. He gets it, while all McCain wants to do is bomb, bomb, bomb somebody, no matter who it is. Just to make sure they know who's boss.