Kerry's Globalism Guru?

It's just a guess, but I think that Thomas P.M. Barnett is being tapped by the Kerry campaign – possibly for his counsel and wisdom, but maybe for something even more substantial. His recent performance on C-SPAN (of all places) helped put his book, "The Pentagon's New Map" on the bestseller list, even though it was published in April. Now, it would appear (if his weblog is any indicator) that the reach of his ideas may extend even further:

…[went] to suitably non-descript location in Northern Virginia to spend an afternoon discussing the possibility that PNM [The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century] is the real deal (the grand strategy that prevails) with someone who might act on it in a big way in coming months and years as the national security establishment revamps itself in light of the 9/11 intelligence failures. It’s a quiet conversation that strains my brain cells to the limit. This guy is a serious thinker with serious problems requiring serious solutions. Am I interested in helping? There are some offers you cannot refuse on a day when the U.S. announces the 1000th casualty in Iraq.

Time to head back to the bookshop – I expect it will be well worth the effort. Listening to his presentation on C-SPAN was the most heartening experience I've had in months. At least there's someone out there who can at least appear to understand the complexity and emerging character of the United States' military presence in the world. If only our politicians could be so articulate. But if you're following a campaign, any campaign, you're not likely to get better than this:

“I believe it’s important to get out and ask for the vote. I believe it’s important to travel this great state and the country, talkin’ about where I intend to lead the country.” [Bush] made this sound like an original idea, and perhaps a controversial one, and the way he repeated the words “I believe” carried an air of defiant conviction: I’m not here offering myself to you because that’s how it’s done in a democracy but because that’s just how I am, and I don’t give a damn who says different.

He wore no tie, and his sleeves were rolled up, and the simplicity of the proposition, the easy conversational forthrightness, seemed so natural, so obvious and reassuring, that it was easy to forget, as he wound on through his stump speech, that he had promised to lay out a plan for the future. He offered no such plan, or even any new initiatives. He just declared the past four years a success, and said that more and better was to come.

Ah well. Perhaps when America is gone, there will be evidence of the crime that finished her off.