I'm sitting here with goosebumps on my arms as I read accounts of Obama at G20, and I want to share my enthusiasm with you. Will you join me in reflecting here for just a minute?
In 2000, a proudly parochial man was foisted upon us as president. A man who had never traveled abroad. Predictably, he was an embarrassment on the foreign stage.
It wasn't enough that George W. Bush the president squandered America's post-9/11 goodwill stores by invading Iraq. George W. Bush the diplomat had to paper the walls for eight solid years with unwanted shoulder rubs, clandestine drinking binges, beach volleyball grab-ass and oafish boasting about America's disregard for Mother Earth herself.
Less than three months ago this buffoon was still president.
I am overjoyed with this change in tide. I can't even contain it.
I talk to Republicans, okay? They're in my family. I work with some. Some of them were half-hearted supporters of Bush, and some were full-throated defenders. But from many of them at one point or another in the last eight years I heard, "Why do you care so much what foreign countries think of us?"
The implication of this line of reasoning is clear. It is that to care what other countries think of the United States suggests imperfect patriotism. It allows the idea that we might be wrong. And that will not do.
This "American exceptionalism" is rationally and morally bankrupt, and President Barack Obama is ushering it out. He is ushering in a new era of American exceptionalism which is based on the understanding that we must always be willing to examine ourselves, our actions, and their consequences to ensure that they are worthy of us.
What is exceptional about us isn't our destiny. If we understand anything from our current state of peril, it's that our destiny is a work in progress, and we can still fuck it up mightily.
Our power isn't what's exceptional about us, either. We have begun to understand our vulnerability, and we have rejected the charlatans who've promised to keep us safe by stripping away our freedoms.
What is exceptional about us is how we choose to bear the unique burden of simply being The United States of America. Whether we choose to wear it like a bandolier and march alone, glancing backward occasionally to see who has closed rank behind us, or lead with a humility that acknowledges our youth and our failings but promises better.
We are watching our president hit his stride this week. He will return from this trip having not spent political capital, but having accrued it. Because Democrats, liberals and progressives don't have to defend, excuse, and apologize for Barack Obama's performance overseas, we can throw our full weight behind his priorities at home.
No president is perfect, and I have my quarrels with Barack Obama, but that is another diary for another day.
Today I'm as proud as can be.