When social historians look back at the first decade of the second millennium, they are likely to judge it an era of demand for hyper-respect. A generation of kids raised not on rote learning, but on the belief that self-confidence would make them all could be ran a muck on the streets, whilst in the White House old men demanded that the world pay them the respect they wanted:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there is a “high probability” that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed…. “The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy. I’m not at all sure that that’s what the Obama adminstration believes.”

Such sentiments were a common refrain during the Bush Administration; most notably in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, designed to impress once and for all the creation of a New American Century. By invading Iraq, they hoped to show that America was to be always respected. That it would never bluff, never back down, and not accept contrary regimes. Respect was its by word and end goal. In this way, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others brought to the hight of state power, a street like demand for power.

Cheney, and the street punks like him, want a system where they, and they alone have power. That is the end game of respect. Only one can be respected, it is not divisible or able to be partitioned. You are respected or you are not. And that is power.

Obama it seems, operates on a different understanding of power : Authority
Via Andrew Sullivan on the new presidents style:

If Bush was about the presidency as power, Obama is about the presidency as authority. It’s fascinating to watch this deep difference in understanding slowly but unmistakably realize itself in public actions…. This is an understanding of the president as one node in a constitutional order – not a near-dictator outside and superior to other branches of government.

As an authority, it is necessary to be one above many. Authority is meaningless unless in a social setting, unless in a system where others recognize your role in that setting.

That is the fundamental philosophical difference. Bush and Cheney still envisage a world where nation states are alone, in a brutal, Hobbsian world. Where every other competitor could be destoyed, and the power of your state would only be enhanced.

Obama however, lives in a world where nation states compete within a community. Where getting ahead, does not necessarily mean success at the expense of others. Obama, as the head of the most powerful and idealistic nation in the world is seeking authority. Authority to advance American ideals, protect American lives, preserve American industries.

From such a distant perspective as this bloggers keyboard, no final judgment can be offered. Cheney & co preserved US soil from further terrorist attacks for 7 years. But by every traditional calculation they made the country weaker and poorer. Less respected and more open for attack. Obama’s approach is new. It has yet to have time to work, yet to see any results (indeed we might not well into his second term). But in fundamentals, Obama’s ideal of power is different, in a way that his opponents will never recognize. Either Bush/Cheney are right; Or they will spend the next 5 years gasping and spluttering about the change and incomprehensibility of that change. Because of this fundamental divide about what power is, no public debate really is possible, between the former administration and the current. All over one little word.