Says it for me

Muriel Gray, in The Sunday Herald (Scotland): ... But then, in this finely crafted, tightly honed speech, where not a word was out of place, we had this: 'Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.' ... Now there's no doubt that everything America does has an effect on the world, catastrophically so under Bush, from his wholesale slaughter in the Muslim world to the sly undermining of democracy in South America. But US can indeed change the global economy, global climate, international peace, and it will bring about those changes mostly as a consequence of protecting its own interests. But precisely in what sense does it 'lead'?... Since we rightly had no say in his election, representing as he does his American citizens and not us, he's going to have to watch it with that 'leading the world' stuff.