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Strategies & Market Trends : Waiting for the big Kahuna -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: William H Huebl who wrote (49994)	1/16/2001 8:14:01 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 94695

We already know some of the consequences. We have a President, a world leader, who was never interested in traveling but knows a little bit about Mexico because he's visited that country a few times. (g) W'S World Excerpts from The New York Times Magazine, Sunday, January 14, 2001, Page 28 "But pretty much everything that he (BUSH)knows about the world beyond our borders, with the exception of Mexico, he has picked up from bull sessions with Condoleezza Rice and the band of advisers she assembled in 1999. The advisers say that Bush proved to be a diligent student, but you have to wonder about even that. When an interviewer asked him about the Taliban during the campaign, Bush drew a blank. Only when given a hint -- repression of women in Afghanistan" -- did Bush say, "Oh. I thought you said some band. The Taliban in Afghanistan! Absolutely. Repressive." ********************************************************************** People close to Bush dismiss his past as irrelevant; he has, they say, both the experience and the character to direct the affairs of the free world. Condoleezza Rice argues that as governor of Texas, Bush gained a familiarity with foreign affairs from his dealings with Mexico. "He has on-the-ground experience there," she says, " ********************************************************************** These arguments seem reassuring mostly to Bush's own allies. Many Europeans, for example, see the president-elect as an all-American boob. Olivier Duhamel, a respected and usually restrained French commentator on foreign affairs, described Bush in Le Monde as a symbol of the "crétinisation" of American politics. The core issue is not whether Bush is smart enough to grasp the nuances of a complex world -- he has smart advisers for that -- but whether he cares enough. His party is led by figures, from Trent Lott to Tom DeLay, who view much of the foreign world with outright suspicion. Brent Scowcroft, Bush the elder's national security adviser, describes a "mood change" in Congress since his time in office toward a view that is "much more conservative, much more hostile to multilateralism." Will Bush speak unambiguously to these figures, and to the public, about the virtues of active diplomacy? It doesn't seem very likely.