Fareed Zakaria Reviews the Bush Cheerleaders' Clown Show
He watches John Bolton, David Brooks, and William Kristol put on the floppy shoes and the red plastic noses:
Conservative Contradictions by Fareed Zakaria: 'Senator Frist should schedule a floor debate without time limits,' William Kristol argued in The Weekly Standard. If Democrats want this debate, Kristol wrote, 'let Republicans make them pay a price' for it. David Brooks... agreed, explaining that Bolton's disdain for 'global governance' has... support in the country. 'We'll never accept it... because it's undemocratic.... Multilateral organizations look like meetings of unelected elites, of technocrats, who make decisions in secret.... [W]e will never allow transnational organizations to overrule our own laws, regulations, and precedents.'
Perhaps the debate should center on the globe's most powerful international body, the World Trade Organization.... Its rulings on disputes between nations are binding. It is undemocratic and filled with technocrats. And it was an American creation that conservatives supported wholeheartedly.... It's strange. Most of our debates about multilateral bodies seem to involve those organizations that are really talking shops.... The ones that have real clout are almost all in the economic realm. And they surely are the most significant .... [Y]ou don't hear John Bolton or his defenders objecting to any of this....
I think the WTO has been hugely beneficial to Americans--and the rest of the world. It has expanded trade, opened markets and made our economy far more productive.... The WTO was America's idea, a way to make other countries open their markets and increase trade. We agree to bind ourselves to these rules because it means that everyone plays by them as well. The organization has forced change in all its member countries.... American firms understand that sovereignty has been breached anyway. Capital, goods and services move freely across borders... manage this process in a way that benefits all. That usually means some system of (gasp) global rules....
[T]here is increasingly the reality of a world in which other countries want their interests taken into account. That means that for many issues... the only durable solutions will be ones that involve some rules that everyone agrees to... 'global governance.'... The United States wanted to punish the perpetrators of the horrific atrocities in Darfur. But to do so, it had to find some system by which such judgments could be made. It could not be a purely American process.... So Washington reluctantly (and quietly) agreed to refer Darfur to the International Criminal Court, which we have been actively trying to kill and that exists despite strenuous American objections...
