Most presidents have scandals & any president can blow a war, but...

[Bucky]

When a leader can actually knock his own country out of superpower status in just a 5 year time frame... that's a truly historical achievement. As DU's Virginia Dare pointed out in a different thread, China it now telling the US to "shut up" about our concerns over their current military expansion. Meanwhile Iran is thumbing its nose at us, our allies are deserting us, a ragtag bunch of bandits are confounding us in Iraq, thereby tying down our entire military strike capacity, Israel keeps slipping off its leash, South America is turning left faster than Ricky Bobby in the home stretch, and our intelligence services can't even catch a low-tech, cave-dwelling semi-cripple hooked up to a dialysis machine hiding in a country we conquered five years ago.

Welcome to Mr Bush's America!

How many other world leaders have ever sunk their nation's stock so far so fast? Nero couldn't do that--the Roman Empire survived his corrupt regime more or less unaltered in raw power. Chamberlain, maybe, altho the British Empire was already in wane. Bush inherited a nation at the apex of its world power status--loved, respected, and feared by all the right people the world over. The Ming dynasty emperors certainly navigated the kingdom into decay down from being a superpower--but the decline took a couple of centuries and they had the Mongols to push them over.

The only true historical parallel I can think of is Darius of Persia. His obsession with punishing the marginal Greek city states on the periphery of his empire brought about his country's doom. Thank goodness the Muslim fanatics we face are politically incapable of producing an Alexander the Great. But just in case, maybe I'll go and buy my daughter a burkha.

[Rex]

1. The Repukes knew he was a total failure in the business world.

So they knew he could be exploited in the political world as well. I've been watching this idiot since he won office here in Texas as Governor. So far Bush has failed at every single item put in front of him as a challenge. I would almost say it is uncanny, his track record; most people evidentially succeed at SOMETHING. Not this guy.

[lpbk2713]

4. He has a talent for snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Check em out: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5360042

[Joe for Clark]

2. I like your post Bucky.

Great sarcasim.

Joe

[Selatius]

3. We are still a superpower

The sheer size of our economy still means we're still relevant to the world. If we lose that, we will revert back into the backwoods power we once were in the 1800s.

If Bush attacks Iran, he could knock out that last pillar though.

A war would mean crippling, astronomical gas prices, and China would most likely retaliate by dumping US dollars in favor of Euros or a basket of currencies, causing the US dollar to devaluate even further making foreign produced goods even more expensive. It would be a double-tax. You get inflation due to gas prices raising the cost of production, and you get inflation due to your dollars being worth less at the same time. You will see incredible inflation at the supermarket. Incredible.

These are just the economic consequences. We haven't even talked about the political consequences. In short, it ends when the rest of the world puts us behind the "Iron Curtain" and shuns us like we're the USSR reborn, and Europe and China and others will fill the void we left behind when we became a pariah state.

[Bucky]

5. Economically, we're strong. But that alone isn't superpower status.

All that means is that we're rich. To be a true superpower, you have to have political, military, and cultural dominance. I.E., full spectrum dominance. We've lost that. I know we're still the world's leading power, but I don't think we can truly act as a superpower right now. We don't have the power to strike Iran. If we had a real reason to go to war with them, we could. But that would involve a draft and a shift to wartime production. I don't see that happening short of a direct attack by Iran--which is obviously not gonna happen.

I was being sarcastic, a little, obviously. But still, Bush has shot a lot our diplomatic-military load on Iraq. China, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, Russia, and Iran are all showing that, while we're no where near done with, we certainly carry a lot less influence in the world right now. And half of what we want to do in the world we need to do alone. Mr Bush has strategically weakened us, which I think makes the world a more dangerous place.