Article in NYTimes Select.
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.html?URI=http://select.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/opinion/23friedman.html&OQ=nQ3DTopQ252fOpinionQ252fEditorialsQ2520andQ2520OpQ252dEdQ252fOpQ252dEdQ252fColumnistsQ252fThomasQ2520LQ2520Friedman&OP=7d0a94bbQ2FQ2Av!fQ2ADEKVVDQ2AuMMkQ2AWWQ2AuUQ2AVAejeVjQ2AuUQ26Ke!hQ22njFgDQ22P --snip
"We are entering the era of hard choices for the United States - an era
in which we can't always count on three Asian countries writing us
checks to compensate for our failure to prepare for a hurricane or
properly conduct a war," said David Rothkopf, author of "Running the
World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the
Architects of American Power."
"If President Bush doesn't rise to this challenge, our children and
grandchildren will look at the burden he has placed on their shoulders
and see this moment as the hinge between the American Century and the
Chinese Century. George W. Bush may well be seen as the president who,
by refusing to address these urgent questions when they needed to be
addressed, invited America's decline."
Truly, I hope Mr. Bush rises to the challenge. We do not have three
years to waste. To do that, though, Mr. Bush would need to become a
very different third-term president, with a much more centrist agenda
and style. If he does, he still has time to be a bridge to the future.
If he doesn't, the resources he will have squandered and the size of
the problems he will have ignored will put him in the running for one
of our worst presidents ever.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.economics/browse_thread/thread/bbb4b458481de78e/9df376ced1266189?lnk=st&q=george+bush's+third+term+friedman&rnum=1#9df376ced1266189 This a stunning piece from Friedman. The only thing I take issue with in it, is his claim that "a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible..". The time for this claim was when the weapons inspectors were continuing to find no WMD's.
It makes me numb to comprehend what a small group of vicious ideologues occupying our government have done to hurt so many people, and with untold ramifications far into the future.