American Non-exceptionalism

So, it's been awhile since I've posted anything, and so much is hitting the proverbial fan.  There is simply too much to talk about, but I'll hit on some of the issues I've seen lately.

I thought I'd begin with revisiting the notion of "American Exceptionalism," and Obama's apparent denial of it.  You probably remember last year when President Obama was asked by a (I believe) Financial Times reporter  about the idea of American Exceptionalism and whether he believed in it.  Much to the surprise and chagrin of most Americans who expect their president to answer that question with a resounding, "yes," Obama gave some kind of ridiculous and contrite answer that went something like this:  "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."  The point is he was extremely dismissive of the idea, almost mocking, and managed to simultaneously disregard America's truly exceptional history and current world status.  Many reporters and media-type talking heads were equally dismissive, attributing it to a mere difference in interpretation of the phrase.  But it's a very big difference of interpretation.  This is because I believe it's an indication of how he really feels about this country.  I doubt any president would go on record as saying he doesn't subscribe to "American Exceptionalism," but he's the first to take the idea from an objective, clear, and positive observation of America's role in world history to a post-structuralist, subjective, unquantifiable, and politically-correct construct.  In other words he thinks America doesn't stand alone with any particular greatness and we're all just unique in different ways.  I, like I imagine most other Americans, find this wholly intolerable.  Nevermind that in just 234 years this nation has produced the greatest democracy, greatest individual standard of living and wealth, greatest equality under law (even with our flaws), and greatest testament to the human spirit in the 15,000+ years of human civilization.  Let's review some other instances from this president and his administration that gives this credence:

1.  Now-First Lady Michelle Obama was on record as saying something along the lines that she wasn't truly proud of this country until it elected her husband president.  Wow.

2.  Obama sat in a church congregation for 20 years whose pastor regularly preached messages of racism and espoused that the US government routinely commits crimes against humanity.  You telling me he wasn't influenced by that?

3.  The NASA administrator Charles Bolden, went on Al Jazeera TV to explain the president tasked him with expanding international relationships and "[...] perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science... and math and engineering."  WTF?  It gets better.  He went on to say the United States is not going to travel beyond low-Earth orbit on its own and that no country is going to make it to Mars without international help.  Oh yeah, except that we already have with the Apollo missions.  But remember, that wasn't really exceptional.  We still need help from the Muslim world to get to space, I guess.  I also suppose it does make it kinda difficult to get into space when you, ya know, stop building spaceships.

Oh, there's so much more.  I could go on.  But this post is already long enough.  I applaud (and thank) you if you made it all the way through.