By David Rieff
The National Interest | February 11, 2014
To accuse President Obama of being exceptional in his refusal to embrace American exceptionalism has been a perennial staple of discourse among hawkish conservatives intent on proving that he has a proclivity for going AWOL when it comes to national security. During the 2008 election campaign, Senator John McCain, for example, accused then candidate Obama of not believing in America’s role as the world’s leader and of not pushing back hard when confronted by those in other countries who doubted America’s greatness. And Mitt Romney tried to play the same card in 2012: “Our president doesn’t have the same feelings about American exceptionalism that we do. And I think over the last three or four years, some people around the world have begun to question that.”
For those, like me, who would prefer our country to be more of a republic and less of an empire, and to eschew its historic global role of the “dangerous nation,” to use the characterization coined by Robert Kagan, who meant it as praise, the most obvious response to these claims is a heartfelt: “If only!”
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