Obama Too Is An American Exceptionalist

[...] Obama Too Is An American Exceptionalist [...]

Interesting post MS. I doubt any president would say they DIDN'T subscribe to American Exceptionalism but there certainly is a distinction to be drawn between the My Way or the Highway version of his immediate predecessor and BHO's.
.
I hope you get back to the post-structuralist stuff. I know nothing about that-other than from the wiki link- and would like to read your thoughts.

Short version of Obama's comments: Kick in some cash and troops guys. We're broke too but there's still some sh!t that needs done.

very interesting indeed. i'd love to read your thoughts on this post-structuralism stuff.
.
the way i see obama's multilateralism is in the context of writing a blueprint for the post-cold war, 21st century world. We've pretty much been aimlessly oscillating from one approach to another. we just can't police the world all by our own any longer. we don't have the resources nor the political will. So, Europe, and the Middle East in particular should be taking a more significant leadership role. Afpak isn't America's War. When we defeat Al Qaeda, we don' t just protect American lives. So, we can't socialize all the risks and dangers, gain the scorn of the world but still manage to protect them. And if we're willing to listen to them and take their advice, if they want more leadership role, they must assume the responsibilities that come with it.
.
in that respect, i don't think his philosophy is much different in terms of foreign security policy as in foreign economic policy (addressing the unsustainable trade deficits, as you've argued quite ably the other day.

Is there a difference in practice between Obama's American Exceptionalism and the Project for a New American Century's?
.
What specifically would that difference be?
.
How would we see that difference demonstrated in practice, say with respect to the Afghanistan occupation?

i suppose my general point is, im disappointed that we just committed 21,000 new troops just by ourselves. and 21 nations came together to strongly the plan but commit just 5,000 troops. leadership isnt about running your mouth and laying blame, and trumpeting how much your arguments prevailed. you have to get down to business too. and i wish obama had pushed them a bit harder to take responsibility proportional to their larger megaphone.

the difference between American exceptionalism and the "exceptionalism" of other nations is the level of national maturity behind the idea of "exceptionalism" that mitigates against the hubris inherent in exceptionalism. Other nations may think they deserve to be treated as exceptional, but only the US claim the right to exceptional treatment.
_
and while Obama may be smart enough to blur this distinction in front of international audiences, he still shows strong signs of possessing the same basic "american exceptionalism" mindset that continues to prove disasterous to this nation. (although one does suspect that Obama's conceptualization of American exceptionalism is tied to his own ego -- of course the US is "exceptional"; after all, Obama is their president...)

(although one does suspect that Obama's conceptualization of American exceptionalism is tied to his own ego -- of course the US is "exceptional"; after all, Obama is their president...)
-
Oi.
-
Obama will NEVER do right by you will he Pluk? He could do EXACTLY the same things Hillary would have done and you would STILL criticize because he's not your girl. Lawd you are getting smarmy.

Michael, in your ample free time you would enjoy Sarah Vowell's great book, The Wordy Shipmates, which includes a discussion of the city on a hill from William Bradford through Reagan and in the context of the 2008 campaign. Though you may have already read it...

Michael -- This really has been some of your best writing on the blog. You've offered nuance and insight well beyond the day-to-day soundbite politics and conventional wisdom. You get beat up a lot here and you deserve praise when it's due. Please keep up the good work.

Pluk... I wonder how some European countries twice or even three times the age of our America would respond to your anointment of America's "national maturity."

The way Obama views it, "exceptionalism" seems to be not very different from patriotism or nationalism (without the connotation ascribed to it by Nazi Germany). This isn't the usual interpretation of American Exceptionalism, which is a more elastic and poignant term.

Cosmic convergenge: I just received a call for chapters for a book on American Exceptionalism:
.
Overview:

This planned volume will examine America's exceptionalist rhetoric as it is
manifested in a wide variety of forms and venues, including but not
limited to the following:
- political communication (including campaign discourse and political
rhetoric in general)
- presidential rhetoric
- foreign policy discourse
- media coverage of various events
- popular/mediated culture (film, TV, radio, fiction, music, video games,
and other entertainment forms)
- advertising and marketing campaigns
- art, visual symbols, and other forms of visual communication

I guess we won't get a post about the ass hole in Pittsburgh that murdered 4 police officers because he thought President Obama was going to take his guns away. I guess if we got a post about that then somebody at Swampland might actually have to point out the role Conservative media probably played in driving that idiot to commit his crimes and nobody ever wants to call a spade a spade do we?
.
http://smoothlikeremy.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-wonder-where-he-got-that-idea-from.html

SG it will get exactly the amount of attention the Bernie Goldberg inspired murder got.
.
Shooting up churches, killing cops. Flat out saying they were so moved by wingnut talk they HAD TO KILL.
.
Ignore.

Folks: it is 2.30 in the morning where I am in Europe. American Exceptionalism is bs here. We screwed up on our economy; we are according to my dinner companions a##holes who robbed our own people of their cash all in the name of Wall Street knows it all. And our counterparts in Europe have more safety nets that we have pins for a baby's napkins. I am off to bed now. But here: Obama is great, the Republicans are nuts, and if the Democrats don't stand up for something then they will be nuts too.

Got to go to bed: too much wine.

Could not sign off with out a bow to SGW and SZ.

So exceptionalism means that America is extremely good. And extremely evil, too? Which causes me to conclude that it is all an exercise in semantics. Meaningless.
.
I know evil when I see it. Look up the Bush administration. I know good. Maybe the Obama administration will get that listing some day, but not yet.
.
In the meantime, I wait and watch, and think exceptionalism is just another word in the mind of the beholder.

Makes sense that someone who is such a fan of Lincoln would be an American exceptionalist.
.
There are many kinds of exceptionalisms that are possible. One of the reasons I was so PO'ed by the Bush administration is that he was turning America into just another two-bit, tyrannical empire. Weren't we built to be exactly the opposite of that?

SG: Here's a primer on Budget Reconciliation I though you'd like to read.

Thanks so much bitterpill8.
.
Enjoy your Euro-life. I live with a European person, but right at the moment I have strep throat.

Adolph Hitler was one of the greatest believers in exceptionalism of all time. What others are there?

just another two-bit, tyrannical empire
.
We're getting more and more Soviet by the day.

sz, I don't even know what to make of the administration trying to avoid executive compensation restrictions. Why? It wouldn't be an issue if the executives delivered profits rather than massive loss and financial disaster.
.
Is this another example of exceptionalism? For crooked executives?

formerlyjames:
.
Is this another example of exceptionalism?
.
In a certain way, I think that it is.
.
This is a 1997 paper by Brad DeLong, in which he claims that the Europeans are the ones being "Exceptional":

E. Virtuous Circles
.
All these explanations rely, at some level or other, on virtuous circles. One way to think about the post-World War II settlement, and the contrast with the interwar period, is as a coordination problem. Labor, management and government in Europe could, in effect, choose to try to maximize their current share of national income-as after World War I. Inflation, strikes, financial disarray, cyclical instability and productivity problems can all be seen as corollaries of this equilibrium.
.
Alternatively, the parties could trade current compensation for faster long-term growth and higher living standards, even in present-value terms. Workers would moderate their wage demands, management its demands for profits. Government agreed to use demand management to maintain employment in return for wage restraint on the part of unions. Higher investment and faster productivity growth could ensue, eventually rendering everyone better off.
.
Such a "social contract" is advantageous only if it is generally accepted. If workers continued to aggressively press for higher wages, management had little incentive to plow back profits in return for the promise of higher future profits. If management failed to plow back profits, workers had little incentive to moderate current wage demands in return for higher future productivity and compensation. If labor relations were conflictual rather than harmonious, productivity would be the casualty. Once western Europe had shifted onto this "social contract" equilibrium path--once workers and management began to behave in a mannger consistent with the superior equilibrium--they had no obvious reason to stop.
.
IV. The End of the Miracle
.
Everything went right in western Europe--growth, distribution, price stability, employment stability--up until 1973. Since then things have gone wrong. If western Europe is "exceptional" today, it is exceptional in its high and stubborn structural unemployment, and in the narrow vision of its central bankers.

.
It all starts with those unreasonable European workers "If workers continued to aggressively press for higher wages..." and ends with "the narrow vision of its central bankers" who couldn't be persuaded by visionaries like Summers that their financial products markets should be almost completely de-regulated.
.
What's interesting is that DeLong quotes himself and Larry Summers as a source of credible theory that backs up his contentions in the paper ("I believe in the estimates found in DeLong and Summers (1991)").
.
It's interesting that Brad DeLong and Larry Summers produced a number of papers together during the 1980's early 1990's:

J. Bradford De Long and Lawrence H. Summers, "How Does Macroeconomic Policy Matter?" Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1988: 2 (Fall 1988), pp. 433-480. (Earlier version issued as HIER working paper no. 1418, December 1988.)
.
J. Bradford De Long and Lawrence H. Summers, "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth," Quarterly Journal of Economics 106: 2 (May 1991), pp. 445-502. (Earlier version issued as NBER working paper no. 3515, November 1990).
.
# J. Bradford De Long and Lawrence H. Summers, "Quanto è Forte il Legame tra Crescita e Meccanizzazione?" Rivista di Politica Economica (November 1992).
.
# J. Bradford De Long and Lawrence H. Summers, "How Robust Is the Growth-Machinery Nexus?" Rivista di Politica Economica (November 1992).
.
# J. Bradford De Long and Lawrence H. Summers, "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth: How Robust Is the Nexus?" Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (Fall 1992).

.
I'm being somewhat facetious, but this is an interesting avenue...it's too bad some intrepid political reporter couldn't make a study of this notion and the actors involved...