Arif Maftuhin

REPUBLIKA, November 19 2006 Bush belum datang, tetapi demonstrasi menentang Bush sudah marak di berbagai kota, termasuk mereka yang memaksa masuk dan berunjuk rasa di Kebun Raya Bogor. Karena unjuk rasa itu sering diwarnai dengan aksi pembakaran bendera Amerika, orang [Amerika terutama] lalu menafsirkan demo-demo itu sebagi ekspresi dari anti-Amerikanisme. Orang-orang Amerika yang lugu pun lantas geleng kepala keheranan, "Why they hate us (mengapa mereka membenci kami)?" Pertanyaan yang pernah sangat populer di Amerika ketika teroris menyerang dan merobohkan menara kembar WTC pada tahun 2001. Bush sendiri dalam pidatonya sering mengekploitasi ekpresi kebencian itu sebagai kebencian terhadap kemakmuran, kebebasan, dan kekuatan Amerika. "Ah, mereka itu ngiri saja sama kita," kata Bush di berbagai kesempatan. Bush factor Mungkin Bush benar bila yang dimaksud dengan 'mereka' adalah Usamah bin Ladin. Usamah memang bukan tipe pembela demok...

The Jakarta Post, Opinion and Editorial - November 16, 2006 President Bush's Republican Party has just been punished for his incompetent foreign policy: The messy invasion and occupation of Iraq. While Americans are now demanding Bush change his course, it seems his administration is still struggling to come up with alternatives. Bush's visit to Indonesia, however, could provide him with such a strategy. The mid-term election was nothing short of a referendum on the president. So bad was Bush's performance that a Democratic candidate needed no smart agenda to get elected. The Washington Post's columnist Eugene Robinson mockingly said candidates could win just by sending out a simple message: "Look, I'm not George W. Bush!" According to the Weekly Standard, nearly four in 10 voters leaving the polls said their vote was cast against Bush. Sixteen percent of those who said they voted for Bush in 2004 voted for Democratic candidates. And ...