If you don’t know about the Massengill Movement, read this post first. Then come back and consider another potential recipient: annoying former Bush administration apparatchik and McCain campaign operative Nicolle Wallace. Remember her? She’s still around, and she’s still annoying. She published a column in The Daily Beast yesterday entitled, “Why is Obama Apologizing for America?”
As soon as I read the title, the answer to that question leapt to my mind unbidden: “Because self-important twits like you enabled feckless assholes like George W. Bush to stomp around the world killing innocent people in a senseless, unnecessary war, running secret prison camps and abrogating international treaties for eight fucking years in our name, that’s why.”
My second thought was that Wallace would invoke American exceptionalism in the article just like every other wingnut asshole does. She did not disappoint. But she did surprise me on one score; she recounted an incident in which a German tourist punched her (Wallace's) dog in Central Park as evidence that Americans need not apologize to animal-slapping Huns. No, really:
I guess I had it coming to me. I mean, I did insult Old Europe this week when I said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that President Obama’s suggestion that we should celebrate Europe’s union was “ridiculous.”Oh for the sweet love of fuck! Germans are not only nuts about dogs, they train them not to jump on unsuspecting strangers in public spaces. I’ve never seen so many well-behaved beasties in my life before or since.
[snip]
So when a German tourist wound up his arm and slugged my 35-pound dog on Wednesday morning in Central Park for greeting him with too much exuberance, I should have been prepared. When I turned to him and said, “We don’t hit animals in this country,” he sneered at me and said, “I am German. I am lawyer.”
I called the cops and, God bless them, they were on the scene in less than five minutes. “Were they tourists?” the cops asked me when I explained what happened.
“Yes, Germans,” I said.
“Mmmhmm,” the cop said.
“Mmmhmm, what?” I asked.
“It happens a lot,” the cop said.
So, nasty European tourists have been known to hit dogs in Central Park. Who knew? It got me thinking. Of course, not all European tourists are dog beaters—most of them are pleasant, and I imagine more than a few of them love dogs. But they are not better than us, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what the hell our president is over there apologizing for.
But if we’re going to use incidents like this to illustrate national character, Wallace’s inexcusable failure to restrain her dog is an apt metaphor for our failure as a nation to muzzle the neocon exuberance of our former president and his cronies.
Wallace should never have let her dog climb all over a stranger. And we Americans should not have countenanced the criminal acts committed in our names. I’m sorry the tourist slugged Wallace’s dog, but Wallace has only herself to blame. However, she does not see that.
She also fails to see why we Americans aren’t universally revered and idolized the world over. And she should see it. After all, she held key posts in the administration that did more to sully our reputation than any other president -- ever. But she’s in denial:
In our minds and hearts, most Republicans go straight to Reagan’s description of the shining city on the hill when we hear the term “American exceptionalism.” We see America as the solution to the world’s most intractable challenges. While we understand that we are not perfect, we see America as the nation that gives the most, works the hardest, and fights the fights that need to be fought to protect free people everywhere.You know what, Nicolle? Ms. Power is absolutely correct. And you are living in Lalaland, as unable to take responsibility for your party’s part in this country’s decline as you are oblivious of your obligations as a pet owner. Your dog isn’t the only critter in need of a little training.
By contrast, the Obama camp made clear, during last year’s presidential campaign, that in its view, the city is shining no more. “It’s going to take a generation or so,” Samantha Power, then a senior foreign-policy adviser to Obama, told Newsweek senior editor Michael Hirsh in an article for the Washington Monthly, “to reclaim American exceptionalism.” Americans, Power said, were “neither the shining example, nor even competent meddlers” in the world’s problems.
[Cross-posted at Rumproast]
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