I think we can all agree that the US president - regardless of who it is or will be - moonlights as our 'global leader', and, according to many, is doing a dodgy job of it.
But how can you blame him? His responsibility is to the US electorate inside Fortress America, not you. Whatever clumsy foreign policy the US president acts out, his only concern is what the American voting public, with their vague sense of the outside world, thinks.
In this age of globalisation and geo-political interdependence, it's anachronistic that only US voters can decide who the next global leader should be. But if George W Bush or John Kerry (or Greenspan/IMF) sneezes, the rest of the world - including Malaysia - catches a cold.
The president of the US, as we see in the news every day, struggles for legitimacy as a global leader. Why? Because he was not chosen and legitimised by a global electorate. How undemocratic is that?
Here's a remedy: get off the soapbox, take a deep breath from preaching, and bring democracy to the world in a tangible way.
My Malaysian friends, the outcome of recent US-influenced world politics - and there have been many - may possibly have been decided in 2000 by 537 votes. If Al Gore had gone to the White House, who knows what the world - and how it affected you - would be like?
Only 537 votes - but you, those outside the US, had no say. This time around, I am offering you my vote for the coming US presidential election. Yes, it's just one vote. Yes, it's mostly a symbolic vote.
But this is the only true way to involve people in global issues - let them have a say. I've got no beef with Bush. If that's who America wants, that's who they'll get. But somebody forgot to tell him that 'Yee-ha!' is not a foreign policy.
America is not interested in engaging with its peers because it sees no peers, and, accordingly, acts unilaterally. In the end, the true irony here is that while the US is interested in exporting democracy globally, the last thing it's interested in is a global democracy.