Living Provincially: Bloomberg Businessweek Opening Remarks
By Clive Crook - Dec 20, 2012 6:00 AM ET
The U.S. is a country that likes to be taken seriously. It’s also a country that just spent upwards of a year and $5 billion on elections that achieved almost nothing. While the politics industry was consumed by urgent, domestic concerns -- can you believe that Mitt Romney wants an elevator for his cars? -- a few things were happening overseas. Meltdown in Europe. Political collapse in Japan. Civil war inSyria. Scandals, slowdown and a leadership change in China.
Sometimes it was difficult to retain focus on Clint Eastwood’s empty chair, Ann Romney’s horse, and Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee lineage. Somehow the country rose to the challenge, taking time to weigh which was more troubling, Republican presidential candidate Romney’s method of dog transport or President Barack Obama’s memory of dog meat being tough when he tasted it as a boy in Indonesia.
The British say Americans lack a sense of the absurd. Not so. Consider the Oct. 22 presidential debate on foreign policy. Mostly it was about domestic policy, though the candidates did note that China, Iran and several other foreign nations exist. Events in Europe weren’t worth mentioning, though they agreedIsrael was a friend. Discussing strategy, Obama explained to Romney: “We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go under water, nuclear submarines.” Romney was unfazed. “We will stand with Israel,” he affirmed.
The same absurdist tradition extends to fiscal policy. The country’s political class maintains it’s been grappling with fundamental questions about the limits of markets and the role of government, when it’s mostly been arguing about the top rate of income tax, a topic so narrow it’s almost beside the point.
Sometimes it was difficult to retain focus on Clint Eastwood’s empty chair, Ann Romney’s horse, and Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee lineage. Somehow the country rose to the challenge, taking time to weigh which was more troubling, Republican presidential candidate Romney’s method of dog transport or President Barack Obama’s memory of dog meat being tough when he tasted it as a boy in Indonesia.
The British say Americans lack a sense of the absurd. Not so. Consider the Oct. 22 presidential debate on foreign policy. Mostly it was about domestic policy, though the candidates did note that China, Iran and several other foreign nations exist. Events in Europe weren’t worth mentioning, though they agreedIsrael was a friend. Discussing strategy, Obama explained to Romney: “We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go under water, nuclear submarines.” Romney was unfazed. “We will stand with Israel,” he affirmed.
The same absurdist tradition extends to fiscal policy. The country’s political class maintains it’s been grappling with fundamental questions about the limits of markets and the role of government, when it’s mostly been arguing about the top rate of income tax, a topic so narrow it’s almost beside the point.
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