What Is This World Coming To?

America's New Leaders

World leaders on Thursday heralded the G20 summit as the day the world “fought back against the recession” as they put on a show of unity that lifted global markets and mapped out a new future for financial regulation, reported the London Financial Times with a straight face.

Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, host of the summit, said the meeting marked the emergence of a “new world order”, as he unveiled what leaders claimed was a $1,100 billion package aimed at tackling the global economic downturn.

The FT reported that the leaders ‘papered over’ differences between the US and Europe about whether the world could afford it.  (Guess what they used for ‘paper’?)

Obama described the summit’s measures as “bolder and more rapid than any international response that we’ve seen to a financial crisis in memory,” and for once, I’d have to agree with him.

Had it been any slower or had there been any deliberation,  none of them would have been able to pull it off without a popular revolt at home.   Americans, say goodbye to the greenback.

And to your sovereignty.

Days after GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner was forced out by the Obama administration, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner left open the possibility that such moves could happen again.

When asked if he would leave open the option to pressure a bank CEO to resign, Geithner replied: “Of course.”

“You’re gonna see the strongest consensus on coordinated global stimulus you’ve seen in generations,” he said. “A very powerful consensus on the kind of 21st century rules of the road for our financial systems.”

In a separate interview with ABC News, Geithner said there was no difference in the way the administration has handled the auto and finance industries.

In a separate, yet equally revealing story,  former Bush bogeyman Karl Rove noted in an op-ed that there is a price to be paid for independent thinking in the Obamanation.

It appears that Democrat Pete DeFazio voted against the administration’s ’stimulus’ bill.  (What was he thinking?)

“Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother,” Obama allegedly told him in a closed-door session.  Rove charitably characterized the remark as a “presidential rebuke” instead of the chilling warning of payback that it was.

Maybe DeFazio isn’t scared. Maybe the rest of the Democrats aren’t scared.  But I am.  And they ought to be.  This is like something out of a movie.