Fourth Finds Times in Melancholy Mood: America Falls Short in World's View

Change font size:  A |  A

I was confident the New York Times would find a way to pour cold water on the Fourth of July. Still, turning to it this morning, I was curious to see just what kind of wet [with that cold water]blanket the Times would throw on our national holiday. And the Grey Lady didn't disappoint, with a sour, melancholy editorial viewing America through the eyes of other countries -- and naturally finding us wanting.

Looking Outward on the Fourth begins with a lament over "these very difficult times, four years deep into a war that has turned much of the world against this country." Got that? It's America's fault that times are tough, not that the world seethes with madmen who want to destroy the West. The editors then take a shot at unnamed "political leaders" [who could they be?] who "seek to arrogate the idea of freedom as their own political preserve."

The Times then goes into Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin mode:

Ideas have a way of recommending themselves by the behavior of the men and women who hold them, and this is no less true of nations. The question isn’t simply whether we can project our ideal of freedom around the world. The question is whether, by who we are and how we behave, we can make the freedom that animates us compelling to others.

The country looks inward on the Fourth of July — not in introspection, but in an easy, comfortable sense of historical gratification. Yet this is a good day to look outward as well.

It is a day to ask how good a job — from the world’s perspective — we are doing living up to the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, whether we have done enough to make those sonorous old rights seem like more than a limited case in a limited argument. The answer is more equivocal than we like to believe.

Capiche? On the Fourth, you jingoistic hicks out there indulge in easy, comfortable gratification over how great America is. But not the Times. Citizen of the world that it is, the Times sees America through the eyes of other countries. And guess what? Things are "equivocal." We might not be living up to the expectations of France, Venezuela, China. Who knows -- perhap even Borat's beloved Kazakhstan is disappointed in us.

Oh, the weltschmerz!

P.S. We're not living up to the principles of the Declaration of Independence? We don't behave in a way that makes our freedom "compelling to others"? No wonder no one wants to come live here.

Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net