The Opinion Blog

Olympic dream clashes with Chinese reality

Ripped from the wires ... Texas writer Jonathan Gurwitz argues that China's attempt to change its international image via the Olympics could work -- but not in ways Community Party leaders had hoped:

By JONATHAN GURWITZ

Watch the spectacle of the Olympic Games, and the television screen says "Beijing 2008.'' To understand the spectacle, however, you have to think "Crimea 1787.''

In 1783, Catherine the Great sent her court favorite Grigory Potemkin to pacify and colonize newly annexed territories bordering the Black Sea.

World changed for the worse this summer

Ripped from the wires ... Harold Meyerson notes that a new undemocratic world order is rising -- and that the U.S. has diminishing power to shape it:

By Harold Meyerson

On or about last Friday, the world changed. With two very different coming-out parties -- the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and the invasion of Georgia -- China and Russia put everyone on notice that the power relationships of the past have been reshuffled and that formidable new powers are challenging the established order.