I left that meeting with a sense of helplessness. An annoying question kept echoing in my head: “What happened to America?”

When I majored in Political Science in the US, I was in true awe of the ideologies, values and principles of the American Constitution. I was also a great admirer of the freedom of the press. Unfortunately, what I see today in the political arena in America is a sad case of a great political power gone astray. I was all for Jeffersonian democracy, for Lincolnian honesty and Washingtonian leadership. But to end up with Bushism? Now that is a tragedy. Mr. Bush’s lone Ranger act has caused nothing but pain and isolation for America. As a leader of the free world one cannot base one’s policies on a gung-ho approach to the world. Mr. Bush has done his part to confirm this. For the longest while now, George W. Bush has been steadily jockeying his way through the Western cliché list: “Hunt ‘em down,” “wanted dead or alive,” “smoke ‘em out of their caves,” etc. All of this tough talking ride-’em-high cowboy attitude has produced an administration that is so odd and foreign to America that people have a very hard time accepting it.

You listen to Ashcroft and you’d swear he was the interior minister of the Baath Party. Not forgetting of course Mr. Caffeine himself, Rumsfeld, who is happy to launch a war per week as long as it is “politically convenient.” Then there is Wolfowitz, who keeps doing anything he can to help the Likud Party and its henchman, Sharon. It’s very interesting that US has been pushing for political reform in the Middle East (and it’s obviously needed), but I wonder if political reform is not also desperately needed in the US. Political values and liberties are eroding. The US is desperately in need of a kinder, gentler administration. Only once that happens will it be in a position to “sell” its values to the world convincingly.