Who Will Lead America Through Its Collapse?

When you run for president in America, the basic Number One rule is that you must say, early and often, that "America is Number One" or "This is the greatest country in the world" or some other equally uplifting, patriotic statement that makes it very clear to voters that America is the top nation on Earth, and you are the candidate who best understands the unique glory of the United States.

Also, you must wear a very large "flag pin." Experts say the winning presidential candidate must wear an American Flag Pin that weighs at least seven pounds, and the pin must pierce through the heart muscle (for patriotism).

But the three remaining candidates in the 2008 race are facing a terrible new problem: Everybody's saying America's not really Number One at anything anymore, beyond maybe defense spending and childhood obesity. Even the famous weekly news magazine Newsweek says so in the current issue's cover story!

Not only has America fallen, but the rest of the world is hardly even paying attention to us anymore -- except when our military invades some country for oil or whatever. Fareed Zakaria writes in the Newsweek piece, "The Post-American World."

The world's tallest building is in Taipei, and will soon be in Dubai. Its largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India. Its largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood. Once quintessentially American icons have been usurped by the natives. The largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore. The largest casino is in Macao, which overtook Las Vegas in gambling revenues last year. America no longer dominates even its favorite sport, shopping. The Mall of America in Minnesota once boasted that it was the largest shopping mall in the world. Today it wouldn't make the top ten. In the most recent rankings, only two of the world's ten richest people are American.

There are two ways we can deal with America's decline in economic power, science, art, education, infant survival, general health, fun, life expectancy, literacy, good looks, height and sense of humor: We can either complain like a bunch of liberals or conservatives, or we can get it together and adjust to the new reality. As John McCain and George W. Bush often say, it's "hard work" running a country of dumb people.

(Oh, there is also a third way, Option Zero, which is "Post comments on every website about how Ron Paul is the only Congressional Texan Obstetrician who truly understands the Constitution, which was actually a lot less democratic back in the Founders' days when "democracy" was an insult directed at the kind of people who put animated Ron Paul GIFs on their MySpace pages. But let's stick to the first two options, for brevity/sanity's sake.)

Option A: Admit it, and come up with some real programs to at least stop America's decline, if not reverse it. Here are a few programs that made America the greatest country in the world from World War II until the 1970s, when everything began its sad plunge: the G.I. Bill, the WPA and the Apollo program.

Option B: Just lie like crazy, do some photo ops with dumb poor people, and act like it's offensive to even mention that America's got a serious case of Decline and Fall.

Option B will get you elected, at least.

Ken Layne is editor of Wonkette.