So says Washington Post Managing Editor Philip Bennett, in an interview with China’s People’s Daily Online:
I don’t think US should be the leader of the world. My job is helping my readers trying to understand what is happening now. What is happening now is very difficult to understand. The world is very complex. There are various complex forces occurring in it. I don’t think you can imagine a world where one country or one group of people could lead everybody else. I can’t imagine that could happen. I also think it is unhealthy to have one country as the leader of the world. People in other countries don’t want to be led by foreign countries. They may want to have good relations with it or they may want to share with what is good in that country.
That is also a sort of colonial question. The world has gone through colonialism and imperialism. We have seen the danger and shortcomings of those systems. If we are heading into another period of imperialism where the US thinks itself as the leader of the area and its interest should prevail over all other interests of its neighbors and others, then I think the world will be in an unhappy period.
Bennett goes on to note that, compared to the “thrill of a good soccer match,” baseball is a “very boring” sport, and that apple pie is “a rather pedestrian dessert, when you stop to think about it. No. Give me a nice flan or creme brulee any day. Now those are complex desserts.”
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related: Ace and LGF offer their thoughts.
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update: American Digest has much more.
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update 2: (3/16/05) Bennett’s quotes may have been “massaged” by the Chinese People’s Daily, so approach the above post with that in mind.
And of course, the Corvette is so red state while the Fiat….
schmuck…
Remind me again why we elect a President.
According to this guy, the “US thinks itself as the leader of the area and its interest should prevail over all other interests of its neighbors and others…”
Oh…that’s right. We elect a President to protect the interests of other countries.
How could I have forgotten that?
Cricket is a superb game as well.
Citroen makes a fine automobile, don’t you think?
Man, could I use a frosty cold Tsing-Dao, right now.
I’ve always admired Ethiopian architecture.
The US? Gimme a minute…
Really, though, Jeff, what did you think of the Peoples Daily interviewer: Yong Tang?
Knucklehead. I’m sure his parents are very proud. World politics is not THAT complex, and its getting easier to understand every day. Every time I read or hear some media igmo tell me how complex and inscrutable things are, I know a fresh load of elitist crap is about to be dumped in plain view. Depend on it.
pw Word-of-the-day: feeling, as in clinchingly nauseous.
World politics isnt really complex at all. However, the image of complexity must be maintained if you plan on explaining exactly why youre spending a gazillion budget dollars to maintain a bazillion politicians and their staffs on the payroll, ostensibly to deal with just that..
At the core its no different than ruling a herd of baboon in a jungle full of baboon.. Something I know more than a little about. Bottom line is that the herd that kicks ass, makes the rules.. period.. if the others dont like it.. so what? Baboon protocol is very simple.. we dont care if the French ‘Surrender Monkeys’ are offended.. (Heh..I love that term).. We dont know from a baboon U.N. … The concept of talking and talking, and negotiating and negotiating, and bribing.. I mean ‘offering incentives’.. alien to us.. In our world I’m like ‘ Hey Iran tribe! Unless you want to be having Free & Dempcratic Elections like Iraq in about 6 months.. get rid of the nuke program..’ and two weeks later if they havent got all of their nuke equipment advertised for sale on E-bay, the Blue82s start falling.. Simple plan huh? Then you ask N. Korea.. then China.. then France.. and so on.. and the best part, within a year or less you’ll have every other country in the world jostling each other to see who can suck up the most and be your best ally..** You could learn a lot from the animal kingdom..(particularly the baboons)
Alpha Baboon
** One should remember our TRUE allies that were there for us before ass kicking became neccessary.. Britain, Australia, Poland, Japan, Italy.. and the rest.. You guys rock! So sayeth the Alpha Baboon
Geez AB,
You’ve only been a baboon for a week now…and already you’re a jungle expert! You get my vote…overthrow the lions…AB for King of the Jungle!
Me, I want some “free and hempcratic” elections. Either that or good relations with some freedom cleavage. I’m flexible.
Turing word: single, as in “The US doesn’t have a single colony.”
And, for that matter, I think Moms are over-rated.
Hey! I take exception…
Oh, she’s making that Americana joke…
never mind
We missed a few of these.
Michael Duffy, Time: ”Why can’t we run a check point after a year?”
Totenberg Eats Shoe, Admits Misjudgment on Iraq Election’s Power
Praise Heaped on Rather, ”Sad” Conservatives Exploited Memogate
Hey dude,
Me too at
Dictatorship? What Dictatorship?: Washington Post Managing Editor Chats With The Peoples’ Daily
I do and I do and I do…. and THIS!
I mean like, I do all the up-close and personal FISKING, I do the utterly complete run down, I do the removal of his internal organs and the draping of his guts on my garters while Johnson and Ace do jack-effing-merde and get the “Oh, yes” links.
That’s it. I’m posting the pictures of Goldstein’s romp last month with the Pony Girls and the Peg Boys!
I am also posting the url to Goldstein’s little known masterpiece:
Ponygirl Express and the Springhill Mine Disaster:
A taste:
“A pretty sheen of sweat and lust coated her body. She knew she was a pretty pony, and just listened to the sweet voice, that told her how good ponies behaved. She wanted to be a good pony.”
Okay, I backtake fatwa.
And of course, the “spot the irony” answer in this little episode is that China very boldly and unabashedly thinks itself to be entitled to be the leader of the world and have the rest of the world subordinated to its interests as global hegemon. And not only do they harbor that belief, but they are currently acting on the assumption that this will be the state of affairs by 2050. But then, they’re a country with something to prove, and we’re not. AN i’ll bet this fellow’s nuanced hems and haws do not look like wise and humanitarian magnaminity so much as an admission that America has no more geopolitical mojo, and is resigned, even eager, to be displaced.
Godammit, I voted for America in the last Leader Of The World election, and they won. So STFU.