|
August 29, 2008
The Democratic Convention comes to an end with a speech by Obama on the anniversary of Marin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington in 1963. Will this content in the television show known as the Convention, provide a means to counter the Republican attacks?:
Steve Bell
Timothy Garton Ash says that power of US presidents is decreasing.
For this, too, defines the Obama moment: that the relative power of the president of the United States of America has diminished, is diminishing, and will continue to diminish. Just consider what has been happening outside the American election bubble. In Georgia, Russia has cocked a snook at Washington and torn up the terms of the post-cold war settlement. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, Islamic extremists are growing stronger, not weaker, as we pay the price for George Bush's wild goose chase in Iraq.
The power of the US empire may heave reached its limits now that a unipolar world is changing, but the power of the President is increasing due to increasing centralization of power of the White House at the expense of Congress.
|
Is it power that's being lost, or democratic legitimacy? Bush has demonstrated that a lack of legitimacy doesn't stop power.