Mom & Apple Pie

Lots of buzz about a speech potential GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie gave at the Reagan Library last night.  Most of the chatter focuses on the big guy's will-he-or-won't-he game, but the following little dig at the current administration is what really caught my eye:  the Times reports that he had this to say about the current leadership in Washington:

Unfortunately, through our own domestic political conduct of late, we have failed to live up to our own tradition of exceptionalism.

First of all, doesn't the '-ism' suffix suggest that Christie is referring to a tradition of thinking in a certain way about something?  But this is misleading; although he seems to be referring to that lame GOP trope according to which Barack Obama doesn't pay enough obeisance to the idea that America is an exceptional country, one somehow not subject to the same moral and geopolitical constraints and expectations that people in other times and places are subject to (in other words, a way of thinking), my take is that he explicitly wants to say that we're currently falling below our own high standards of, er, exceptional-ness.

Governor Christie is entitled to his own opinion regarding how exceptional we're currently being.  But as for the doctrine of exceptionalism, that's just crazy talk.  The idea implied, namely, that we can and ought to play by our own set of rules, strikes me as little more than a license for imperialism.  And that's to say nothing of the epistemological hubris:  would I claim to have the best parents on earth?  No:  they're really the only parents I've ever had--how would I know what kind of parenting is available out there in the great, wide world?  Does that mean I can't love my parents?  Of course not:  there are many reasons to love my parents.  Similarly, I can love my country without claiming that it's the greatest country on earth, and it would be foolish of me, based on my biased experience, to make such a claim in the first place.

Citizens, Disguised

The Times reports on the new realities of our campaign-financing sham:

While most of the candidates are backed by one or more superPACs — nominally independent groups that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on their behalf — Mr. Romney and Mr. Perry’s supporters have assembled what appear to be the most robust groups, staffed by former aides with longstanding ties to the formal campaigns and financed by the candidates’ leading donors.

The groups essentially function as auxiliary units of the campaigns, even though they are required by federal law not to coordinate their activities or messages. Mr. Romney is backed by Restore Our Future, a group founded this year by three veterans of his 2008 campaign for president. Recently, the chief fund-raiser for Mr. Romney’s campaign jumped to Restore Our Future, and he has already met with some of Mr. Romney’s major donors and supporters — a practice permitted by current campaign regulations

Mr. Perry is backed by Make Us Great Again, a group advised by a prominent Austin lobbyist who is his former chief of staff and financed by some of his leading donors...

Grading Obama

Bill Keller provides a thoughtful appraisal of Obama's tenure thus far in today's New York Times.  On the one hand, as he acknowledges, critics on the left can rightfully complain about 'Obama’s deal to continue the Bush tax cuts, his surrender of a public option on health care, his refusal to call the Republicans’ bluff on the debt ceiling rather than swallow budget cuts', etc.  But regardless of his shortcomings, we need to keep in mind some considerable achievements; to the hyperbolator who claims that Obama hasn't done a goddamn thing, Keller replies that 'Obama pulled the country back from the brink of depression; signed a health care reform law that expands coverage, preserves choice and creates a mechanism for controlling costs; engineered a fairly stringent financial regulatory reform; and authorized the risky mission that got Osama bin Laden'.