The Washington leadership has put aside non-proliferation programmes and devoted its energies and resources to driving the country to war by extraordinary deceit, then trying to manage the catastrophe it created in Iraq.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
A lot of the things that will really improve the world fortunately aren't dependent on Washington doing something different.
The threat to globalization is not the wasted American dollars but Washington's readiness to mix US commercial interests with its self-appointed role as global protector.
Too often in Washington we tend to see foreign policy as an abstraction, with little understanding of what we are committing our country to: the complications and consequences of endeavors.
We need to strengthen our analytic capacity in Washington, we need to centralize the anti-terrorism effort.
What I say is, national defense is the most important thing we do in Washington, but there's still waste in the military budget.
The shaming of Washington, insofar as it is even possible, is a very noble pursuit.
Power tends to corrupt. But the power in Washington resides in Congress, if it wants to use it. It can do anything - it can stop the Vietnam War, it can make its will felt, if it can ever get its act together to do anything.
Since taking office, President Obama has worked to restore a positive vision of American leadership in the world - leadership defined, not by the threats and dangers that we will oppose, but by the security, opportunity and dignity that America advances in partnership with people around the world.
Washington has, with some justification, gained a reputation for being hopelessly mired in partisan gridlock.
There's a void of leadership in a lot of Washington. I think one of the reasons why there's so much angst across the country.