American Exceptionalism

Jeb Bush is ruling out a presidential bid in 2012, but he sounds bullish about the future of another Florida Republican, describing Senate nominee Marco Rubio as "Reaganesque. " The former two-term governor and brother of former President George W. Bush said in an interview with MSNBC's Joe Scarborough that although he would not run for president, he does plan to be active in the political scene. "I'm troubled about the future of our country. I think we're stuck when we need to be explosively moving forward to transform how we do things," he said.

WASP culture is dead! Long live WASP culture! Solicitor General Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court says a whole lot about the state of white Anglo Saxon Protestant culture in the U.S., but it's not what you think. If her appointment is approved, there will be no white — or any other color for that matter — Protestant on the court. Some joke that this means it's high time to carve out a WASP seat on the bench. Others suggest it spells the end of WASP dominance in general.

Re "Squanderer in chief" and "Obama's blind hubris," Opinion, April 28 Tuesday on the Op-Ed page, James Kirchick castigates President Obama for his "obsequious behavior" and Jonah Goldberg takes him to task for his "arrogance" and "hubris." I never could understand the thinking of the far right. Now I'm beginning to wonder if they understand their own thinking. In any case, Kirchick gets it wrong when he lambastes Obama for apologizing to countries around the world. The U.S. has a lot of apologizing to do for our numerous offenses under the Bush administration, including waging an unwarranted war and torture.

At a stop on his grand global apology tour this spring, President Obama was asked by a reporter in France if he believed in "American exceptionalism." This is the notion that our history as the world's oldest democracy, our immigrant founding and our devotion to liberty endow the United States with a unique, providential role in world affairs.

A Tolerable Anarchy Rebels, Reactionaries, and the Making of America's Freedom Jedediah Purdy Alfred A. Knopf: 294 pp., $23.95 -- The Myth of American Exceptionalism Godfrey Hodgson Yale University Press: 222 pp., $26 -- In his 2003 book "Being America," Jedediah Purdy remarked that at "the same time we disclaim imperial aspirations, we Americans suspect that we are the world's universal nation."

VICE PRESIDENT Dick Cheney's refusal to comply with a presidential order regulating the handling of classified information might be scary were it not so ludicrous. Cheney's rejection of mandatory inspections required of all federal offices to make sure they are properly protecting top secret documents defies basic standards of good government and common sense. And his argument that he needn't comply because his office isn't part of the executive branch is specious.

In 1803, the Pennsylvania-born painter, engineer and entrepreneur Robert Fulton was in the process of designing a steamboat that would soon revolutionize commercial shipping on the Hudson and Mississippi rivers. At 38, he had already spent several years in London, where he lived with the expatriate American artist Benjamin West and enjoyed the patronage of various wealthy men, including Earl Stanhope and the Duke of Bridgewater.

One thing you can count on: When times get tough, Americans will crowd around a ready optimist. Optimism is woven into the very fabric of Old Glory, an essential part of our self-made, self-sustaining mythology. With an election campaign taking shape in the distance, this may be an opportune moment to acknowledge that the U.S. also is a country quick to snub its doubters and its scolds. "In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence," observed the British poet A.E. Houseman.

Of the numerous illustrated books released at this time of year in hopes of gracing American coffee tables at Christmas, few will be as visually compelling as "Eyes of the Nation," a showcase of the vast holdings of the Library of Congress. This collection of engravings, posters, prints, photographs, cartoons, maps, movie stills and the like contains a few images so familiar that they ought to be retired--King Kong atop the Empire State Building, for example.

The only eyewitness account we have of the Puritans' first Thanksgiving (by Edward Winslow) describes three days of sporting, entertaining and feasting, hardly the pious sobriety one would ascribe to a "grim, self-righteous and self-satisfied" society. Rutten should not dismiss the Puritans so quickly. After all, the movement was diverse enough to include poet John Milton, a champion of civil liberty and free expression. While their little theocracy had a dismal civil rights record, most atheist states and so-called people's republics have done far worse.