Doing Good… So Others Can See It
What a sincerely compassionate and caring man. That’s all I could think when I read President Bush’s remarks in Latin America this week, where he told our friends down South:
“I want to remind people throughout our neighborhood that America cares about them…And I want the American people to get credit for their generosity in Central and South America.”
There’s nothing that people around the world love more than our oh-so-popular President engaging in a small act of generosity and then congratulating himself and our country in front of a large international camera crew. I’m shocked the protestors across Latin America didn’t put down their sandwich boards and begin thanking Bush on the spot. How rude!
On a serious note, when is this administration going to learn that you don’t do good just to “get credit”? You do good because you actually care about the world and because you genuinely believe that we should be a good global neighbor. It’s only when you truly care about others (not just in self-interested terms) that they will care about you (not just in self-interested in terms). The irony is that people around the world really did care about America in the wake of 9-11 and increasingly Americans really care about the world (- look at everyone from our Hollywood celebs to our high-tech entrepreneurs devoting themselves to ending poverty and disease globally). In many ways, it is our President and his failed policies that are keeping America from getting credit for our good deeds because he is so focused on getting recognized he’s forgotten to do anything worthy of recognition. Indeed, to most of the world, the President increasingly looks as if he cares a whole lot about American security and very little about global security. As it turns out, his leadership is jeopardizing both because in reality the two are mutually interdependent and not mutually exclusive.
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