After the end of the Cold War, the United States could have done so much to continue the advance to an even more effective, rules-based system where law governed relations between states. Instead, today’s America has pushed these high aspirations and noble principles aside and led us, step by step, to a point of crisis. What went wrong?

Senator Barack Obama is refreshingly ambivalent about celebrity. Admittedly, he is said to be pals with George Clooney. Yes, he is raising money at LA fund-raisers attended by all the usual suspects. But the indications are that celebrities may not receive the respect from the Obama organisation to which they became accustomed in the salad days of the Clinton administration.