OPINION: "Brazil Steers an Independent Course," by Susan Kaufman Purcell, Wall Street Journal, 4 January 2010.

The usual straw man-ing that says a rising power must exhibit interests and behavior identical to that of America's--lest we be stunningly disappointed! ("You're saying we don't see eye-to-eye! OMG!").

So we find that Brazil sometimes supports regimes we like and sometimes tries to make their existence more complicated. Ditto inconsistency re: regimes we hate.

Well, when America gets universal interests instead of our usual national ones, I'll expect the rest of the planet to do the same.