Bush's Dr. Jekyl and the Prius' Mr. Hyde

For the love of turning things on their head, lets explore a coupla alternative themes, starting with the president. He has come a long way since those heady days in 2005 when he was re-inaugurated, The Discovery Channel named him sixth greatest American of all time, and Time Magazine made him person of the year. Indeed, it would probably not be an exaggeration to claim that he is now the most uniformly reviled human living because he took a country with vast power on a reckless course. Americans themselves are beginning to agree with this judgement as his approval ratings are tempting to dip into the 20s and serious Republicans like Chuck Hagel mentioning the words "Bush" and "impeach" in the same breath. Could there possibly be silver lining? Perhaps not, but lets give it a whirl.

Recently the venerable Foreign Affairs published an essay called The New New World Order which provides some food for thought. Daniel Drezner argues that the Bush Administration has waged a smart policy of integrating rising powers (China, India et al.) into those international institutions like the IMF which function effectively. "This unheralded effort is well intentioned and well advised." For the sake of argument, lets concede that Bush has blundered badly in his Middle East and security policies. But perhaps this will merit little more than a footnote when the history of the 21st century is written, since the far larger trend is that of China and India who are fundamentally changing the way the world operates. If they are not included in the international system then "they might go it alone and create international organizations that fundamentally clash with U.S. interests." As one state department official has put it, "we need to urge China to become a stakeholder in that system so that it will work with us to sustain...its success." Of course, you might say that the other big trend has more to do with the Toyota Prius, that is to say: global warming.

Yes well the Prius may not be the angel you think it is. At least such has been the talk around conservative watercoolers (do conservatives run on water? - that will have to wait for another column). But the real question (to which the al-Gore critique is a apparently a sequel) is whether Priuses run on green energy. The source of such wisdom seems to be a report issued by a marketing research firm called CNW which was described in this article in The Recorder (okay okay, I'll admit that the school paper at Central Connectecticut State is not quite the heavyweight that Foreign Affairs is). Herein two claims are made:

• The lifetime energy usage of a Prius is 50% more than a Hummer, if you consider the manufacturing process.
  
• The mining of nickel for the batteries does massive environmental damage.
  

Say it ain't so!?