Even The Christian Science Monitor Sees How We've Screwed It Up

CSM posts this indictment on America's lost sense of democracy.

Spain's wake-up call to US - to lead, listen to global constituents
By Suzanne Nossel

Spain's rebuff of the ruling Popular Party on Sunday was a slap in the face to the Bush administration, and a potential setback for US plans in Iraq and the fight against terror.

The upset is a wake-up call to US policymakers that democratic influences on global politics are here to stay and can affect - even thwart - US aims.

To remain at the helm of international affairs, the US will have to adapt its leadership style accordingly, recognizing that foreign peoples are increasingly steering their nations' foreign policies.

Ironically, the US seems to be tripping over a tangle of constraints on its own superpower prerogatives because of the very democracy it seeded across the globe. In the face of this transformation, Bush's failure to win international popular support for priorities like the war on terror and the attack on Iraq is more than botched diplomacy. It's a failure to grasp what it takes to succeed as a global leader now.

As the Spanish backlash illustrates, alliances that rely solely on individual leaders and parties are frighteningly vulnerable, and are no substitute for acceptance of shared values and priorities across a society - something the Bush administration as failed to do virtually anywhere.

Instead of trying to circumvent or override the role of democratic forces, the US should change its global leadership style to harness this powerful trend. Global leadership today is less like ruling a family or a classroom - where an anointed head enjoys largely unquestioned authority - and more like leading a democratic country where voters can oust their ruler at will. Accordingly, the US must remake itself as the global leader of choice - one that does not try to insist on the world's allegiance, but rather earns it.

Of course we're dealing with a president who hasn't earned a damned thing in his life. This makes the psychology of this failed "You're With Us Or Against Us" administration crystal clear. Bravo.