Managed decline, badly managed

George Will, a conservative American commentator, told the Sun. debate show ABC This Week that we shouldn't believe a word General Motors says, because of its misrepresentation of the facts in its government bailout. It used to be said that "what's good for GM is good for America." George Will's advice about GM can now increasingly be applied to its owner, the U.S. government itself. It's too strong to state, "Don't believe a word the U.S. government says," but this is indeed where the trend is headed. Think, for example, of the widespread skepticism about the official version of 9/11; the outcry over missing WMDs; the perverse joy the world gets from Wikileaks; or the global disbelief when the U.S. says QE2 is not a dollar devaluation. It's a modern tragedy for the Western world that the U.S. is in a state of managed decline and is managing it badly. The self-discrediting of the U.S. government is an important part of this, and any forecast of what the near future holds for Czechs or anyone else is incomplete without considering it.