TREND-SPOTTING, BRIT-STYLE. Never mind that The Economist’s cover story this week was the lead story in TAP about two months ago. With a circulation that’s considerably, ahem, larger than ours, the British publication will score more global attention for its coverage of the U.S.'s “new” left-leaning trend, which seems to be all but widely accepted at this point, especially as a steep decline in popularity among young Americans translates to predictions of stormy weather for the GOP.
The middle-right perspective of this development coming from across the Atlantic, however, seems, amazingly, to have its defenses set up in favor of President Bush. The article claims that “this President Bush is not a good scapegoat” in the popular abandonment of the Republican Party, as he hasn’t betrayed the right but “has given it virtually everything it craved, from humongous tax cuts to conservative judges." What's left out is how criminal incompetence in nation-building, falsified intelligence, and violation of constitutional checks and balances with vetoes, refusals of subpoenas, and suspension of due process have contributed to what The Economist remarks is “one finding that stands out in polls” -- “most Americans distrust government strongly." Of course, the article does proceed to examine how utter failure in Iraq has swayed public opinion decidedly against the President, but it also does a disservice to America’s image in the global community by highlighting only the Republican ideals that are supposedly waning, without acknowledging a standard of integrity to which most Americans hold them. --Elisabeth Zerofsky
