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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (800)	12/21/2000 6:48:52 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93284

The Supreme Court's elected Bush. Here's a letter you should read from The New York Times ******************************************************** "Re: Another kind of Bitter Split" (front page, Dec. 14); Virtually all of the students I teach who were eligible to vote did so, and with a radiance that personified the deepest optimism of the founding fathers in the enduring strength of an educated populace. Neither impeachment nor divisive campaign rhetoric dampened their faith. They just asked new, more and better questions. In the wake of the United States Supreme Court's decision handing George W. Bush victory, there is a silence in our halls that is stunning by contrast. One student expressed it this way:, "It is as if the questions are now too big to ask, and the answers too unbelievable." This may be the most bitter split of all resulting from the court's decision ----** a breach of faith between those who govern and the citizenry whose consent and right to be heard are the source of their legitimacy and power. Susan Eisner The writer is a professor of management at Ramapo College. Letter published in The New York Times Sunday, December 17, 2000

To: TigerPaw who wrote (800)	12/22/2000 5:13:05 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

FOREIGN AFFAIRS The Powell Perplex By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN December 19, 2000 Watching George W. Bush nominating Colin Powell for secretary of state, I had mixed feelings. One was relief: Mr.Powell's answers to reporters' questions demonstrated a sharp and intuitive grasp of global issues. Whether you agree with him or not, this is a serious man. My other feeling, though, was: I sure hope Colin Powell is always right in his advice to Mr.Bush — because he so towered over the president-elect, who let him answer every question on foreign policy, that it was impossible to imagine Mr. Bush ever challenging or overruling Mr. Powell on any issue. Mr. Powell is three things Mr. Bush is not — a war hero, worldly wise and beloved by African-Americans. That combination gives him a great deal of leverage. It means he can never be fired. It means Mr. Bush can never allow him to resign in protest over anything. It will be interesting to see who emerges to balance Mr. Powell's perspective. Indeed, I would have felt better if Mr. Bush — who at age 54 has barely traveled abroad — had interviewed other candidates for secretary of state. A Jack Welch from General Electric, for instance, or a veteran U.S. diplomat like Stapleton Roy, or maybe someone at a smart NGO, like the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights — just to get a feel for other serious people's perspectives on the great trends in the world today. If I'd never driven a car before, I'd want to test-drive a few before I bought one. After all, a lot has changed since the Bushies were last in office eight years ago. The world has moved from a cold-war system, in which our biggest threats and opportunities flowed from whom we were divided from and which was symbolized by the Berlin Wall, to a globalization system, in which our threats and opportunities now tend to flow from whom we're connected to, and which is symbolized by the World WideWeb. In this new system, states, and the balance of power between them, still matter — whether it is America balancing China or NATO balancing Russia. But now there are more actors to balance. In addition to states, there are the "supermarkets" — the 25 largest global financial markets — and the "super-empowered people," from terrorists like Osama bin Laden to activists like Jody Williams, who organized a global ban on land mines using e-mail. "We know that the Bush team will be serious about what the Clinton team was not serious about, which is about intervening militarily," said the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum. "But what we don't know is how the Bush team will deal with what the Clinton team was serious about, which was intervening financially and diplomatically to stabilize markets when they threatened the international economy." One of the biggest threats to global stability in the last eight years came when the supermarkets melted down Mexico in 1995. The Clinton administration met that crisis with the Mexico bailout, which was largely opposed by Republicans. That bailout turned out to be exactly right. What does the Powell Doctrine say about such market interventions, which many of our allies might demand of him one day? Also, the last time the Bushies were in office their main preoccupation was managing the strength of Russia, China and Japan. Today they will find themselves managing the weakness of Russia, China and Japan. As all these countries go through the wrenching adjustment to the globalization system, they are much more likely to threaten us by their economic collapse, corruption or loss of control over nuclear materials than by launching a missile at us. If you don't think it's a new world, think again: When George Bush Sr. left office in 1993, there were roughly 50 pages on the World Wide Web. Today there are a billion or two. When George Bush Sr. left office, virtually no one you knew had e-mail and most people thought the Internet was something used to catch fish with on the Nile. Today your grandmother has e-mail, not to mention every terrorist group in the world, and Internet access is considered an entitlement. Every administration gets tested by an unanticipated crisis. My guess is that the test for the new Bush team will come from this whirlwind of rapid change — both the enormous pressure it puts on new democracies and the backlash it produces from traditional societies. Mr. Bush has appointed serious people to wrestle with this. Their serious test awaits. nytimes.com