America Must Act Like the Global Leader It Is

The United States is a country that likes to be taken seriously. It’s also a country that just spent upwards of an entire year and $5 billion on elections that achieved approximately nothing. While the politics industry was consumed by urgent, domestic concerns—can you believe that Mitt Romney wants an elevator for his cars?—one or two things were happening overseas. You know, meltdown in Europe. Political collapse in Japan. Civil war in Syria. Scandals, slowdown, and a leadership transition in China.

Sometimes it was difficult to retain focus on Clint Eastwood’s empty chair, Ann Romney’s horse, and Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee lineage. Somehow the country rose to the challenge, taking time to weigh which was more troubling, Romney’s method of dog transport or Barack Obama’s memory of dog meat being tough when he tasted it as a boy in Indonesia.