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11/25/2004: "Bouncing the Reality Check"

An issue left over from the election in danger of getting lost to history is the concept of the “global test.” Rove jumped on Kerry’s coinage of this term during the debates so that it became a sneering laugh line in every Bush appearance from that point on. Kerry himself never really defended it. I myself thought he was on to something. Here’s my take on what a global test is: “if people around the globe are screaming about something you are doing, maybe you ought to take another look at it.” This is no different from reconsidering a personal action if your family and friends universally advise you that something you’re doing is a bad idea. There are not-so-nice names for people who ignore that kind of advice. Any policy needs a reality check, and feedback is one of the best reality checks going. In the foreign policy arena, the opinions of foreign leaders and foreign citizens are absolutely relevant. Consider the words in the Declaration of Independence that reference “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind.” This is particularly true where warfare is involved! Unfortunately, the Bush Administration is faith-based rather than reality-based, so it has no interest in reality checks. If Bush cared about reality checks he wouldn’t be packing his administration with yes men. When you don’t have a mechanism for reality checking, you get re-enrolled in the school of hard knocks. What sort of hard knocks can a country get by having no respect for the opinions of mankind? Here’s a data point: US brands like Disney and Gap have seen huge declines overseas. But that’s not really the issue. It’s not that thumbing your nose at the rest of the world, ignoring unanimous and strongly expressed opinion, is bad for business. The real danger is that they just might be right.