Outsourcing U.S. clout

This is a recurring theme here. We overreact on security and apply tough measures in the wrong places, we scapegoat immigrants for our economic ills and crises of identity, and we risk ending up poorer and isolated. With any luck we'll have a President of USA in 2009 who will see the folly of the current situation and apply progressive policies to fix it.

Recently I spoke with the dean of a highly regarded business school in Canada, who has ambitions to raise the school's standing so it is at a level with the best of the US schools. He said the best thing that has happened to his plans to recruit internationally was the Bush administration. Students from all over the world who are accepted by Harvard and Stanford are told by INS that visas cannot be expedited. They give up and go to Canada or other countries. Their gain, our loss.