Thursday, September 1, 2011

Obama and the Burden of Exceptionalism

Post-'60s liberals, with the president as their standard bearer, seek to make a virtue of decline. - Shelby Steele for The Wall St. Journal

This is the piece Rush was talking about.
America seems to be facing a pivotal moment: Do we move ahead by advancing or by receding—by reaffirming the values that made us exceptional or by letting go of those values, so that a creeping mediocrity begins to spare us the burdens of greatness?

As a president, Barack Obama has been a force for mediocrity. He has banked more on the hopeless interventions of government than on the exceptionalism of the people. His greatest weakness as a president is a limp confidence in his countrymen.