A few months ago, before Michelle Obama became First Lady, she got into trouble with some folks for saying that her husband’s candidacy for President represented the first time in her adult life that she had been proud of her country. So how did you feel before that, the critics asked.
Well, I’m proud to be an American, but it’s a little hard to be proud of some of our recent behavior. Let’s face it, folks – the current world economic crisis is basically our fault. Wasn’t it we who invented credit default swaps and sub-prime mortgages? Didn’t more than a few of us lie on those home loan apps? Didn’t our regulatory system fail miserably, with Bernard Madoff as the poster boy? Haven’t our auto companies been making vehicles with no future, and haven’t we been buying them? If you want to expand the view somewhat, don’t our baseball players take steroids and our Olympic gold medalists smoke pot? And single mothers have 14 children? And not long ago, wasn’t torturing prisoners of war OK?
But the good news is, we can still be a role-model for the rest of the world, as we admit our mistakes and work ourselves out of the hole we find ourselves in. Those are hallmarks of being American. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again.
And of course, there’s pilot Chesley Sullenberger and his crew. So we still have a few things left to be proud of.
There, now I’ve said it.
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