[...] Much of the criticism is maddening, but, to a degree, the Bush administration brought it on itself by initially acting unilaterally.

There, I told you that Richard couldn’t quite bring himself to actually defend President George W. Bush. Sure, he can see the silliness of his critics, but, well, they are criticizing President George W. Bush after all.

It too casually denounced the Kyoto environmental protocol and the International Criminal Court.

Casually? No, I think they were rejected out of hand as not being in America’s interests and in fact, being unconstitutional. And what does this have to do with the agenda of the World Economic Forum, other than being part of the laundry list of illiberal complaints about the US not sacrificing its sovereignty?

When certain allies volunteered to do some of the fighting in Afghanistan, they were rebuffed. We'll handle this ourselves, the Bush administration said -- and it did.

Quite well, if I remember correctly, without being hamstrung by our NATO allies inability to integrate with our forces or to act forcefully in a clear manner. Remember Bosnia? Is this the kind of help Richard wanted us to depend on?

Little wonder, then, that Bush earned a reputation for unilateralism. [...]