Fareed Zakaria, one of the most impressive people I've never met, was the guest on Wednesday's Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Stephen Colbert and Fareed Zakaria go way back, since Fareed is a frequent guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and Colbert was on that show before Jon Stewart. In fact, for two years it was known as The Daily Show Some Day in the Future to Have Jon Stewart. Who knew?
After dispensing with the melting of our "fragic arctile ecosystem," Colbert went right for the heart of the issue: why should anyone in America even care about the rest of the world? Fareed brought up a few trivialities: 9/11, Evian flu, and outsourcing. I just saw a report yesterday about outsourcing health care. It is now possible to join an HMO that cuts costs by requiring you to go to Mexico for non-emergency surgery, for example. (We're going to reach a point where we ship our lawns overseas to be mowed, if we're not careful.) Fareed also illuminates a central issue: why does the rest of the world feel such animosity towards the United States?
After dispensing with the melting of our "fragic arctile ecosystem," Colbert went right for the heart of the issue: why should anyone in America even care about the rest of the world? Fareed brought up a few trivialities: 9/11, Evian flu, and outsourcing. I just saw a report yesterday about outsourcing health care. It is now possible to join an HMO that cuts costs by requiring you to go to Mexico for non-emergency surgery, for example. (We're going to reach a point where we ship our lawns overseas to be mowed, if we're not careful.) Fareed also illuminates a central issue: why does the rest of the world feel such animosity towards the United States?
The rest of the world has begun to dislike us a lot more because they see us as arrogant, boorish, and totally unconcerned about the rest of the world. It just rubs them the wrong way. — Fareed Zakaria, 2005-10-19Then the ever-amazing Mr. Zakaria puts forth what sounds remarkably like my philosophy for this blog:
I basically try and look at [foreign policy] issue by issue. I don't have a "team" that I'm always rooting for. I find that sometimes I think that Bush is doing the right thing, sometimes I think he's doing the wrong thing. These days, I have thought more often than not he's doing the wrong thing, but I don't begin with the premise that everything he does is wrong.Stephen Colbert asks, "Isn't a centrist just someone without the balls to be a fanatic?" Let me say that Fareed Zakaria has massive conejos. If George W. Bush had half the intelligence, wisdom, honesty, and cojones of Fareed Zakaria, the world would be a much better place.
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