Well, it's an election, stupid, I say to myself, but nevertheless it did catch my attention when Mitt Romney was reported as attacking Obama's foreign policy:
"Abroad, he's weakening America. He seems to be more generous to our enemies than he is to our friends. That is the natural tendency of someone who is unsure of their own strength, or of America's rightful place as the leader of the world."
I suppose, a century and a half ago, a British person might well have made the same unhesitating and unreflecting claim to a "rightful place as the leader of the world", but we are, all of us, usually a little more circumspect now. I just wonder wherefrom Mr Romney thinks that right derives, and whether he does not reflect that he has just given a hostage to fortune, or to history. Can he truly be confident that the right will not soon be migrating to another national brow?
