President of China? | The Weekly Standard “Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, ‘No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.’” Finally, finally, finally. One thing is to channel the ambitions of the electorate and the wishes of an entire nation, and another one is to wish for unaccountable power to ram your will through your vassals' throats.You can rationalize it anyway you want: your two all-time favorites may be "it's for their own good" and "they deserve it", but in the end you have to face the music: you are another puny wannabe tyrant, another Chávez, another Castro, another Kim Jong Il.
You might want to run for cover and find comfort and solace in the words of Thomas L. Friedman, who woefully laments that America is not ruled by a benevolent, enlightened autocratic class, just like China (some would argue that's exactly what is happening now in the USA). But as you said, you can put lipstick on a pig... and it will still be enlightened absolutism, or tyranny.
Obama's longing for absolute power was to be found initially buried in a New York Times article, but it was for The Weekly Standard to put this pearl of wisdom in context and in the spotlight. Obama may be a member of the Democrats, but he's definetively not a democrat.
All those messy democratic procedures!
