Nonstop idiocy about Obama and `American exceptionalism'

[babylonsister]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/01/more_idiocy_about_american_exc.html

Nonstop idiocy about Obama and `American exceptionalism'
By Greg Sargent


A lot of people have already jumped on Kathleen Parker for her column yesterday faulting Obama for not using the actual phrase "American exceptionalism" in his State of the Union speech. But to me the funniest part of her column is that way down in the seventeenth paragraph, she actually admitted that one of the primary pieces of evidence allegedly proving that Obama doesn't believe in "American exceptionalism" is total nonsense.

Conservatives often deride Obama over remarks he made at a presser in April of 2009, in which he said that he believes in American exceptionalism "just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." But as Parker apparently felt compelled to acknowledge, that's not all he said:

His answer has haunted him since:

"I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."

I remember thinking at the time: Bzzzzt. Wrong, Harvard. That is not the correct answer. There was more to his response, in fact, but the impression was already set.

What Obama added was that "we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional."

Not so hard to say after all?

Now, as it happens, Obama also said at that presser that he is "enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world." And he hailed America's "continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity." Parker didn't tell you about those two quotes.

But I'll take it: Unlike many conservatives, she was at least willing to acknowledge at that presser Obama also described America as "exceptional." Many on the right have airbrushed this inconvenient fact out of the record.

That this admission comes in a column faulting Obama for not using the phrase in his speech last week, of course, tells you all you need to know about how absurd and self-parodic this ongoing attack has become.

[tularetom]

1. Media people using this phrase have no idea what it actually means

They'd like you to think its just a statement of patriotism like "America is an exceptional country" but there's much more to it than that

The phrase was actually dreamed up by the gang of neo cons who used it to justify US armed intervention in Middle Eastern countries.

Basically what they meant is, We're Americans, we don't have to play by no steenking rules like all those lesser countries.

[emulatorloo]

2. Historically that is wrong. Has its roots in the Puritan era

Quick summary of the history at wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

It is true that Bush Republicans took the term and ran it through their propaganda machine.

[jonnyblitz]

3. and it looks like Obama is continuing where the Bush

Republicans left off. The two Obama quotes in the third paragraph from the bottom are seriously cringe worthy and basically a steaming crock of SHIT. I am sure there are many folks in countries at the receiving end of our "benevolence" (do i have to list them?)who beg to differ with Obama's quotes. of course most stuff happened before Obama time though some he continues and has expanded on.

[Enrique]

4. exactly one president has ever used the phrase 'American exceptionalism'

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2011/01/31/obama-has-mentioned-american-exceptionalism-more-than-bush

Only one sitting president in the last 82 years has publicly uttered the magical phrase “American exceptionalism”--care to guess who it is? Ronald Reagan, he of the “shining city on a hill?” George W. Bush, who closed his speeches by asking that “God continue to bless” America? Nope. The only president to publicly discuss (and for that matter embrace) “American exceptionalism” is Barack Obama.

(...)

You can search for “exceptional” and get lots of results. For example Obama used the word in relation to both Arlen Specter and Sonia Sotomayor. George W. Bush used it to describe Harriet Miers, twice. As close as Bush comes to talking about “American exceptionalism” was a brief reference to the country’s “exceptional character.” Clinton talked about America’s “exceptional place in human history." But only Obama among the modern presidents has talked about “American excpetionalism.”

So for those of you keeping track at home, Obama has publicly expressd a belief in "American exceptionalism" while George W. Bush used the e-word more often to describe his flop of a Supreme Court nominee than to describe the good old U.S. of A.

(...)

[emulatorloo]

6. Honestly I don't have a problem with the term if it used as

talking about the US has been an example or role model. I think the Right Wing is cuckoo on this point, they mostly bring it up to try to damage Obama.

[butterfly77]

5. This woman really gets on my nerves...

I sometimes tune in for a minute or two to see what the subject matter will be and what will her idiotic take will be on a particular subject. I sometimes do think that something is missing in republiCONS brains,they really don't see anything but their own little world..

[emulatorloo]

7. I think Parker is smart. But she is not above being intentionally dumb

if it serves her argument.

[SpartanDem]

8. Not like our side is much better

to hear DU after the SOTU you'd thought Obama delievered the speech with an "America, Fuck Yeah" banner behind him with all the complaints about it being jingoistic