Has Bush succeeded in reducing the US to a second rate country?

[Stinky The Clown]

Our dollar is the toilet.

Our list of allies is shorter than the Directory Of Decent Republicans.

Our ability to maintain our own defenses is perilously close to bankrupt.

Our influence in financial markets is waning as both Asian and European markets become increasingly relevant.

Our currency's importance to the global oil markets (and other global commodity markets) is slowly but perhaps irreversibly shifting to the Euro.

Our ability to manufacture almost anything is irretrievably gone, our industries, the brains behind them, and even our tools and dies all having been shipped outside our borders.

Our life expectancy and even our level of basic health care is, on the global stage, mid-field at best.

On almost any point, there are more than a few people who beat us .... badly.

Europe shows no particular signs of wanting to be the top dog. They learned their lesson, maybe.

Russia seems quite happy to challenge us.

China is a once great nation vying once again to be a great nation.

Islam is too angry.

Africa has too far to go.

South America is poised to give it a go. Both Brazil and Argentina could try, perhaps successfully, for greater hemispherical influence.

What does that leave us?

Diddly squat.

Was this the plan all along?