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The Big Lie
09 NOV 2010 11:29 AM


It seems to me that the last year or so in America's political culture
has represented the triumph of untruth. And the untruth was propagated
by a deliberate, simple and systemic campaign to kill Obama's
presidency in its crib. Emergency measures in a near-unprecedented
economic collapse - the bank bailout, the auto-bailout, the stimulus -
were described by the right as ideological moves of choice, when they
were, in fact, pragmatic moves of necessity. The increasingly
effective isolation of Iran's regime - and destruction of its
legitimacy from within - was portrayed as a function of Obama's
weakness, rather than his strength. The health insurance reform -
almost identical to Romney's, to the right of the Clintons in 1993,
costed to reducethe deficit, without a public option, and with
millions more customers for the insurance and drug companies - was
turned into a socialist government take-over.

Every one of these moves could be criticized in many ways. What cannot
be done honestly, in my view, is to create a narrative from all of
them to describe Obama as an anti-American hyper-leftist, spending the
US into oblivion. But since this seems to be the only shred of
thinking left on the right (exacerbated by the justified flight of the
educated classes from a party that is now openly contemptuous of
learning), it became a familiar refrain - pummeled into our heads day
and night by talk radio and Fox. If you think I'm exaggerating, try
the following thought experiment.

If a black Republican president had come in, helped turn around the
banking and auto industries (at a small profit!), insured millions
through the private sector while cutting Medicare, overseen a sharp
decline in illegal immigration, ramped up the war in Afghanistan,
reinstituted pay-as-you go in the Congress, set up a debt commission
to offer hard choices for future debt reduction, and seen private
sector job growth outstrip the public sector's in a slow but dogged
recovery, somehow I don't think that Republican would be regarded as a
socialist.

This is the era of the Big Lie, in other words, and it translates into
a lot of little lies - "death panels," "out-of-control" spending,
"apologies for America" etc. - designed to concoct a false narrative
so simple and so familiar it actually succeeded in getting into
people's minds in the midst of a brutal recession. And integral to
this process have been conservative "intellectuals" who should and do
know better, but have long since sacrificed intellectual honesty for
the cheap thrills of enabling power-grabs. And few lies represent this
intellectual cooptation of talk radio/FNC propaganda better than the
lie that Obama has publicly rebutted the idea of American
exceptionalism.

Where does one start? Where one always starts with these things -
Jonah Goldberg:

Last year, when asked if he believed in American exceptionalism,
President Obama responded, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just
as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the
Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."

This reminded me of the wonderful scene in Pixar's "The Incredibles,"
in which the mom says "everyone's special" and her son replies, "Which
is another way of saying no one is." But at least the president made
room for the sentiment that America is a special place, even if he
chalked it up to a kind of benign provincialism.

Oh really?

Here is the full Obama quote:

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits
believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek
exceptionalism. I'm enormously proud of my country and its role and
history in the world. If you think about the site of this summit and
what it means, I don't think America should be embarrassed to see
evidence of the sacrifices of our troops, the enormous amount of
resources that were put into Europe postwar, and our leadership in
crafting an Alliance that ultimately led to the unification of Europe.
We should take great pride in that.

And if you think of our current situation, the United States remains
the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military
capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are
enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic
practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though
imperfect, are exceptional.

Now, the fact that I am very proud of my country and I think that
we've got a whole lot to offer the world does not lessen my interest
in recognizing the value and wonderful qualities of other countries,
or recognizing that we're not always going to be right, or that other
people may have good ideas, or that in order for us to work
collectively, all parties have to compromise and that includes us.

And so I see no contradiction between believing that America has a
continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and
prosperity and recognizing that that leadership is incumbent, depends
on, our ability to create partnerships because we create partnerships
because we can't solve these problems alone.

In other words, Obama emphatically doesn't reduce the idea of American
exceptionalism to "benign provincialism." Quite the contrary: he
explicitly asserts that the values enshrined in the Constitution are
exceptional, and defends them and the US's history in front of a
foreign audience. It's worth pointing out this factual error at such
length because everyone in the conservative movement has already made
it.

And that's hardly an exaggeration. Here are Ramesh Ponnuru and Rich
Lowry:

...while acknowledging that America has been a force for good, he has
all but denied the idea that America is an exceptional nation. Asked
whether he believed in American exceptionalism during a European trip
last spring, Obama said, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just
as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the
Greeks believe in Greek exception alism.” (Is it just a coincidence
that he reached for examples of former hegemons?)

They acknowledge here that the full quote should have run (though the
original piece remains uncorrected). Said Dinesh D'Souza in his
infamous Forbes piece:

This is known as American exceptionalism. But when asked at a 2009
press conference whether he believed in this ideal, Obama said no.
America, he suggested, is no more unique or exceptional than Britain
or Greece or any other country.

No surprise that the magazine didn't catch that error during its post-
publication fact check -- another one of its authors made the same
mistake here. Monica Crowley in The Washington Times:

During his public life, Barack Obama has often referred to his
biracial background and itinerant childhood and has said, "In no other
country on Earth is my story even possible." True.

But earlier this year, while attending the European summit of the
Group of 20 major economic countries, the president was asked if he
believed in American exceptionalism. He replied, "I believe in
American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in
British exceptionalism, and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."

Here's Victor Davis Hanson: "After all, Obama has rejected in explicit
language the notion of American exceptionalism." And Michael Barone:

"I believe in American exceptionalism," Obama said on one of his trips
to Europe, "just as I suspect that Brits believe in British
exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." In
other words, not at all. One cannot imagine Presidents Roosevelt,
Truman or Kennedy, Eisenhower or Reagan, uttering such sentiments.
Here's video of Charles Krauthammer making the same mistake. Ken
Blackwell at Townhall:
When asked if he believes in American exceptionalism, President Obama
said yes, but he was sure that the British and the Belgians also
believed in their countries’ exceptionalism.

President Obama’s version of American exceptionalism is Lake
Woebegon’s children: they’re all above average. Or perhaps, he’d be
more at home in Alice in Wonderland’s Caucus Race, where everyone runs
and everyone gets prizes.

What's especially remarkable about this hackery - and there are
numerous other examples - is that these conservative authors don't
just egregiously misrepresent the president's actual position. It's
that all of them actually cite, as evidence, an out of context line
from the very speech that proves their analysis is wrong.

You can call this truthiness if you like. Better, the Dish believes,
to call it what it is. A deliberate campaign of misinformation. A Big
Lie.

(Photo: US President Barack Obama waves to the media as he enters his
presidential car upon arrival at the Halim Perdana Kusuma airport in
Jakarta on November 9, 2010. By Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty.)