Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Goodbye George!

Un suggestivo articolo dello Spiegel sul declino di Bush.
E' difficile prevedere se l'amministrazione Bush, nei 14 mesi che
rimarrà in carica, vorrà o potrà prendere ulteriori iniziative;
secondo me sanno bene che il verso del declino non può essere
invertito e, per questo, non avrebbe senso ora cambiare la linea
intrapresa.
Ma, per lo stesso motivo, perché ormai non c'è più nulla da perdere,
la guerra all'Iran rimane tra le opzioni probabili.
Quanto alla prossima amministrazione, probabilmente democratica, essa
si troverà a dover affrontare una durissima sfida per il futuro degli
USA elaborando e attuando in tempi brevi un radicale cambio di modello
e di metodi sia verso il resto del mondo sia all'interno della società
statunitense.
Lo spostamento di equilibri nel sistema geopolitico è un fatto reale,
come è un fatto reale l'equilibrio del sistema interno agli USA.  E'
inevitabile che tra questi due sistemi si produca una incompatibilità
progressiva, un contrasto di interessi e un accumularsi di tensioni
tali da richiedere necessariamente un riallineamento, o spontaneo e
violento o gestito e meno traumatico.
George potrebbe ancora rendere tutto più difficile alla prossima
amministrazione (e al resto del mondo), speriamo non lo faccia.
----------------------------------
Goodbye George!
By Gabor Steingart in Washington
It's twilight at the White House. First it was voters and now it's the
president's friends who are abandoning him. Thank God, says
conservative luminary Newt Gingrich. According to Gingrich,
Republicans can only hope to hold onto power by breaking their ties
with Bush.
The end of an era has many faces. One is that of a narrow-lipped
president appearing on primetime TV, asking Americans for money and
their confidence. Another is that of Utah native Nathan Barnes, 23,
who didn't survive his deployment to Iraq and whose photo appeared in
the obituaries section of his local paper.
The end of an era can also look like a woman who was recently sitting
at my table during a luncheon with the United States secretary of
agriculture. She told me that she was his personal assistant. But what
does that mean these days? she added. Things are coming to an end
anyway, the young woman said with a sigh.
Her boss had just launched into a speech about American farmers and
Chinese food imports, but her thoughts were elsewhere. We all have to
re-adjust, she said, half under her breath. Everyone at the table knew
what she meant: It's time to start looking for a new job.
George W. Bush may be presiding over the White House for another 14
months, but judging by the mood among his friends, you would think it
was the last 14 hours. Based on the official list of campaign donors
published last Friday, it seems that Big Business has also turned its
back on the Republicans. Sixty corporate CEOs who had previously
donated primarily to the Bush campaigns -- including John Mack of
Morgan Stanley, Rupert Murdoch of NewsCorporation and Terry Semel of
Yahoo -- are now giving more money to the Democrats.
Indeed, it's already time for goodbyes at the White House. In recent
weeks, some of the president's closest advisors have been so quick to
have their names stricken from the government's personnel files that
one might think some deadly disease had broken out in the Oval Office.
It started four months ago when the speechwriter who invented the
phrase "axis of evil" gave his notice. He was followed by the White
House press secretary ("It's time for me to make money again"), the
budget director, the director of strategic initiatives, and chief
political advisor Karl Rove, a man Bush, in better days, referred to
as the "boy genius." Two cabinet secretaries have also bid the
president farewell -- followed last Wednesday by the secretary of
agriculture.
Visibly Dissipating
It is all too apparent that the political energy is seeping out of the
West Wing of the White House, which forms the heart of the US
adminstration with the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room. Gone are the
days when a buoyant president, when asked to name his favorite
philosopher, cheerfully declared it was "Jesus," or when first lady
Laura Bush would poke lighthearted fun at the neoconservative dream
duo. "George's answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down
with a chainsaw," she said at the annual White House Correspondents'
Dinner in 2002, "which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get
along so well."
Thousands of war dead later, no one is in the mood for laughter these
days. At a press conference last Friday, Bush was asked for the first
time whether he still sees himself as an asset, or possibly as a
liability, to his party. The question reflects the mood in his
innermost circle. In an internal meeting, White House Chief of Staff
Joshua Bolten apparently asked all employees who were tired of their
jobs to resign, adding that anyone who did not resign by September
would have to stick it out to the end.
Many within the Republican Party are also in a hurry to break with
Bush, anxious to head into the coming election campaign politically
cleansed and personally purified. The conservative presidential
candidates' treatment of the sitting president is about as ruthless as
Soviet reformer Nikita Khrushchev's handling of his predecessor Josef
Stalin: They make no mention of Bush in their speeches and TV ads.
The president is now experiencing first hand the flip side of what
happens in a winner-takes-all society. Of course, when the winner
takes all, there isn't much left over for the loser. Being seen as a
friend of Bush in today's America is a blemish, one that can only be
softened by ardently distancing oneself from the president. This
explains why the heroes of the conservative revolution are now
appearing before the public as repentant sinners.
Wild Applause for Greenspan
Bookstores already have an impressive assortment of conservative
confessions on their shelves, books with titles like: "The Tragic
Legacy," "Death Curtain -- The Presidency of George W. Bush," "The
Lost War" and "The Terror Presidency."
Alan Greenspan, who was chairman of the US Federal Reserve for 16
years and who the Bush administration asked to stay in office a few
months past the end of his term, also apparently wanted to get in his
two cents' worth. The man has an instinct for future developments --
apparently even for those that do not involve the US dollar.
At a speech last week at George Washington University, Greenspan made
a conscious effort to distance himself from Bush. "I am not a man of
the right wing," he said, adding that this was already reflected in
the fact that he thought Bush's tax reforms were a bad idea. It was
enough to generate wild applause from his audience. In truth, however,
Greenspan approved of the tax reforms, but he also insisted on
cutbacks elsewhere, including government spending for social programs.
A leading conservative like Newt Gingrich, once crowned Time's "Man of
the Year," cannot help but be pleased that Americans have welcomed the
break with Bush with open arms. Gingrich, who has repeatedly and semi-
publicly toyed with the idea of throwing his hat into the presidential
race, recommends that his party base its new strategy on turning its
back on Bush.
Conservatives Turn to France as a Model
This strategy worked like a charm in France, Gingrich recently told
foreign journalists. French President Jacques Chirac "was in
relatively deep trouble, not quite as much trouble as George W. Bush
is." Under normal circumstances the opposition should have won the
French election. But it didn't. Chirac's Interior Minister Nicolas
Sarkozy was the interior minister by day and, as his admirer from
Washington says, portrayed himself as the "candidate of change" by
night.
Sarkozy positively oozes chutzpah -- and that impresses a man like
Gingrich. "If one of the Republican candidates figures this out, they
will frankly win the election next year," he said.
But it was obvious that even Gingrich wasn't quite convinced, mainly
because he isn't confident that any of the current Republican
candidates could pull it off.
The new era has many faces. Perhaps Gingrich hopes that one of them
could look like his.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,507662,00.html

riallineamento, o spontaneo e violento o gestito e meno traumatico.
*ROTFL*
-Stefano