Leading the world is costing U.S.

Charles Krauthammer's May 1 column on our current foreign policy sounds like he is stuck in the Cold War era. The true measure of a leader is not the one who shouts the loudest, spends the most or wields his power at will. The U.S. can no longer afford, nor needs to be, the first country to get involved in other countries' problems and then pay to fix what we've destroyed. Bush Jr. tried that approach, and it didn't turn out well.

The cost of being the world's perceived leader is bankrupting us while China is happy to not take the lead role and reap the benefits of our country's need for more and more money to keep our debt afloat. A recent article in Time magazine details how to save a trillion dollars in U.S. defense costs, with a key point being that we don't need to have a major presence all over the world anymore.

Strong leaders lead through influence, not through bluster. What Mr. Krauthammers sees as Obama's elitism I see as a leader who thoroughly analyzes a situation instead of taking rash action to improve his ratings. His strategy to get Osama bin Laden is an example of that approach, and it worked better than the “let's blow up every possible cave he might be in” strategy of the past.

Janet Knupp

Bartlett