THE WORLD AFTER BUSH

As the Washington clocks strike twelve on 20th January 2009, listen carefully and you might just hear a swooshing sigh of relief travel around the world.
But a critique of what should have been done differently since 2001 is not enough.
This blog is about the new ideas that can change our world and how a 'new multilateralism' can tackle the global challenges of our age.
Change the World, Reports from the Fabian new year conference



Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The state of the Presidency

He seems to have become an unperson, never mentioned by the Republican candidates as they campaign in Florida, but President George Bush reminded us that he will still be here for 51 more weeks as political attention switched briefly from the campaign trail to the President's final State of the Union address.

But only briefly. Now that he is a President with little chance of pursuing anything beyond a blocking agenda domestically, Bush is left only with words, not action. And even the rhetoric fell flat as Andrew Stephen notes as he bids goodnight to the President in an online New Statesman commentary.


Even Bush’s best speech writers have now deserted him, and that showed in the 59 minutes he was at the rostrum. The grand, sweeping assertions of how a Bush-led America would transform the world, bringing it democracy and everything else that was both good and American, had gone - replaced by far more feeble, forgettable lines like “we are spreading the hope of freedom”.



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The World After Bush

As the Washington clocks strike twelve on 20th January 2009, listen carefully and you might just hear a swooshing sigh of relief travel around the world. The Bush Presidency will not leave the legacy its architects intended. But a critique of what should have been done differently since 2001 is not enough. This blog is about the new ideas which can create a 'new multilateralism' to tackle the global challenges we face.