Who would have thought a few years ago that the most perceptive commentary on the US political situation would appear in Xinhua, the official newsagency of the Communist regime in China. But we have now reached that point, and these are dark days indeed for those of us on this side of the Pacific who love America.
My guess is that the original commentary in Xinhua is in Mandarin, although there is plenty of scathing stuff in English. Still, the secondary reporting has been widespread and brutal. The processes by which the debt ceiling were raised have been described as "madcap brinkmanship", among other things. And how about "politicizing the economics and trivializing the politics" to describe the political process in the "leader of the free world"?
My advice, for what it is worth, is that, although Chinese tea accompanies Szechuan beef superbly, Americans would do well to abstain from all forms of tea for the next couple of years to restore sanity.