U.S. exceptionalism

Michael Vlahos writes: Though painful, this statement cannot be avoided: The gun-massacre of innocents is integral to the American way of life. Call it part of our foundational myth. It is the red reality through which a continent was taken and settled. Today, we call an act like the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, or [...]

Andrew Bacevich reviews Robert Kagan’s The World America Made: Call it a hallowed tradition. To invest their views with greater authority, big thinkers—especially those given to pontificating about the course of world history—appropriate bits of wisdom penned by brand-name sages. Nothing adds ballast to an otherwise frothy argument like a pithy quotation from John Quincy [...]

Michael A. Cohen points out that focusing on the issue of U.S. power vis-à-vis other countries has the effect of directing attention away from this country’s domestic failings. [B]y virtually any measure, a closer look at the state of the United States today tells a sobering tale of rapid and unchecked decay and deterioration in [...]

Matt Miller writes: Does anyone else think there’s something a little insecure about a country that requires its politicians to constantly declare how exceptional it is? A populace in need of this much reassurance may be the surest sign of looming national decline. American exceptionalism is now the central theme of Sarah Palin’s speeches. The [...]