Masters of Illusion American Leadership in the Media Age Phần 3 doc

Clinton was hardly unique; the NSC under Bush senior simplyrefused to believe that Saddam would invade Kuwait, and even ignoredseemingly incontrovertible information provided the night o

The Sources of Our Illusions 85

They are simply special pleaders, not willing to acknowledge that there arecircumstances in which their proposed cure is worse than the disease

For those who argue that there never has been a just war, was the war to endslavery in America unjust? Was the war to end the Nazi horror unjust? Even

if one can imagine that slavery and Nazism could have been ended withoutwar, does that make the wars to end them unjust, or simply unfortunate?

Wishful thinkers must prove they see the world for what it is – dangerousand treacherous (in which our enemies can hide successfully for years) – and

to do so they must repent their first sin, excusing Soviet Communism, andcondemn Lenin and Stalin (to recognize the full evil in the world, includingthe bin Ladens) and must show that they really care about the victims, anddon’t simply write them off as unfortunate road kill in the race toward abetter future Continued whitewashing of the Soviets disqualifies wishfulthinkers on the left for power in today’s world

It has always been a deception: using supposedly idealistic goals to try tojustify force and brutality It could be seen as such by moderate people even

in the heart of the great ideological controversies of the twentieth century.Glamorizing the Soviets was a vice of the left, but there is no need to cite con-servative to make the point We can turn instead to John Maynard Keynes –for decades the darling of liberals because of his advocacy of interventionisteconomic policies – who saw the deception clearly

Writing in 1926 Keynes said, “We lack more than usual a coherent scheme

of progress, a tangible ideal. It is not necessary to debate the subtleties

of what justifies a man in promoting his gospel by force; for no one has agospel” [that is, a compelling explanation of the present and ideal for thefuture] Because no one, including the communists, had a real vision, whatthey claimed was an ideology of progress was concocted to rationalize the use

of force Force was used to gain and hold power, not to promote a vision of

a better world.3Wishful thinkers rejected Keynes’s opinions then, and may

do so today, preferring a fantasy that keeps them from seeing the full scope

of danger and evil in the world This isn’t a mere ideological fantasy (that

is, a fantasy about an ideal – like the conservatives’ fantasy about perfectcompetition), but is a fantasy about history itself and about what the world

is Nor is the fantasy a pardonable exaggeration made for political purposes.There is nothing pardonable about the fantasy because of the great evil itcaused us to accept in the world – Communist slave labor camps and massexterminations of people (in the USSR during Stalin’s period and morerecently in China during the Cultural Revolution)

But liberals are not alone in such wishful thinking; conservatives defendrightist dictatorships (as some did Hitler’s regime and that of Mussolini

86 American Public Culture and the World

before World War II) Again, wishful thinking ignores the brutal realities ofthese regimes

THE DELUSIONS OF WISHFUL THINKINGWishful thinking prevents us from perceiving the world as it is Wishfulthinking is expressed by, and can mislead, American politicians, thoughtleaders and citizens at every level It is not confined to either end of thepolitical spectrum – liberals do it and so do conservatives, and in surpris-ingly similar ways Different ends of the political spectrum take their wishes

to opposite conclusions The liberal argues for a less-well-armed Americaworking closely with other powers; the conservative argues for an Americanremaking the world in our image

For example, one of the central themes of the Congressionally mandatedreport on the failures of intelligence that led up to September 11 is that

we weren’t ready for September 11 because the intelligence community didnot want to see it coming Over many years, people in the field and ana-lysts in Washington and Langley had seen careers ruined because somebodytried to warn the policy makers that trouble was coming The policy makersdidn’t want to hear that sort of thing because they were not prepared to

do the unpleasant things that knowledge of the real situation required Theultimate example was the Clinton White House, where the top people sim-ply refused to even receive information about Osama bin Laden’s activities

in Sudan Clinton was hardly unique; the NSC under Bush senior simplyrefused to believe that Saddam would invade Kuwait, and even ignoredseemingly incontrovertible information provided the night of the invasion,when General Brent Scowcroft went home early.4

The impact of wishful thinking in our public culture is surprisingly nificant

sig-First, it keeps us from perceiving the world as it really is

Tolerance, pluralism, and conflict avoidance encourage our political andthought leaders to downplay the deficiencies of our rivals, even though theireconomic and political systems violate all the axioms of western public cul-ture This approved contradiction in our beliefs prevented American intelli-gence agencies from correctly assessing the Soviet Union’s performance andpotential for years, overestimating its provision of consumer goods, underes-timating its military strength, and overestimating its internal political cohe-sion Wishful thinking also misled them in dealing with the terrorist threats.Second, wishing leads to underestimating the risk of conflict If onlythere were similarity in government (democracy) and economic structure

The Sources of Our Illusions 87

(capitalist free enterprise), the expectation goes, then there would begeopolitical harmony But this is also not proven Because European democ-racy is pacifist doesn’t mean all democracies are similar In fact, thatAmerican democracy today is not pacifist, seems a bitter reproach to theEuropeans – something that angers many

Third, wishing causes us to overreach For example, in Iraq our est priority must be that Saddam and his ambitions for weapons of massdestruction and for support of terrorism are gone, and a new Iraqi govern-ment doesn’t follow him in trying to do those things Then we’ve pulled theteeth of the Iraqi demon

high-More is not necessary But more may be desirable Thus, democracy,capitalism, free markets, liberal attitudes toward women’s rights, the love(or the hearts and minds) of the Iraqi people for America – that is, thehopeful agenda – are good things, and we should urge them on the Iraqipeople and support them if they seek these things, but all these things arenot necessary to our security and if they are rejected by an Iraqi government,

we should not press for them

The danger of wishful thinking is that it causes us to see these good things

as required and that in seeking them we overreach ourselves and end updisappointed, disillusioned and perhaps defeated

Fourth, wishing deflects us from a strong response to threats

For example, writing in the summer of 2003, Michael Ledeen pointed totwo peace initiatives – the Saudi peace plan of 2002 and the roadmap forpeace in Palestine in the spring and summer of 2003 – as efforts to stall theAmerican war on terror Both peace initiatives had been accepted by theBush Administration and each allowed our enemies in the Mideast and ourrivals among the large powers to attempt to frustrate our energetic attacks

on terrorism:

Just as the delay after Afghanistan permitted our enemies to organize their political,diplomatic, and terrorist forces against us, so our current defensive stance enablesthem to intimidate and indoctrinate the Iraqi people, murder our own men andwomen on the ground, and galvanize the president’s critics and opponents, both

at home and abroad our regional enemies in Iran and Syria had plenty of time

to plan their response to our pending occupation of Iraq As they unhesitatinglyand publicly proclaimed to anyone who cared to listen, they organized a terror waragainst us, accompanied by jihadist propaganda, mass demonstrations, and hostageseizures, just as we experienced in Lebanon in the 1980s. The president gave voice

to a welcome revolutionary doctrine when he refused to deal with Yasser Arafat: Hesaid that just as only free Middle Eastern countries could be expected to abandonterrorism and join us in fighting it, only a free and democratic Palestinian peoplecould make a durable peace with Israel.5

88 American Public Culture and the World

This often perceptive article offers a perfect example of how far ness has penetrated almost all American thinking about combating terrorism

hopeful-in the Middle East The two peace hopeful-initiatives Ledeen cites were part of a egy by our adversaries to delay our response, yet they were accepted by theUnited States as a result of the notion that the world is made up of well-meaning people with whom peace can be made by diplomatic initiativesgiven adequate time and support

strat-But Ledeen’s proposed remedy, to build democracy in the region as a basisfor establishing peace, is itself a version of the same fallacy he otherwise con-demns His remedy reflects the conviction that America should try to exportdemocracy (and most likely free enterprise) expecting it to change the com-plexion of the region This is as much an illusion as the expectation of manypeople that dialogue with our adversaries will bring a just peace Instead,the reality is that our secure defense lies in destroying the leadership of ourenemies, then restricting our further involvement to supporting indigenousefforts at democratization and economic reform, but not imposing them.It’s the effort to impose not only regime change, which has been accom-plished, but also democracy and free enterprise that have mired us down

in a guerilla war in Iraq Wishing causes us to overreach; it causes us toequivocate; each is disastrous for our security and one or the other is deeplybuilt into the thinking of Americans of both parties Thus it is very difficultfor America to act in ways consistent with our current role in the world –difficult for us to objectively assess the situation and adopt policies that are

in our own interest

POLITICAL PARTISANSHIPPolitical parties seek popular support To gain it, they behave little differentthan advertisers, seeking to attract an audience, obtain identification withthe audience, and then persuade the audience to support them An effectiveway of doing this is to associate the party and its candidates with views held

by the electorate The public culture offers those views For partisan politicalpurposes politicians use and reinforce those views Partisan politics doesn’tcreate our public culture (the wishful thinking of our electorate is the morebasic cause) but it does strongly reinforce our public culture Thus, politi-cal partisanship contributes to the building of the public culture Withoutpartisanship our public culture would be less significant and different in itscontext – it might be closer to reality

The Sources of Our Illusions 89

For example, President Clinton resonated successfully – but withoutregard for the truth – with the wishful thinking about a peaceful world whichlies at the heart of American popular culture

“For the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age,” Clinton told hisaudiences, “on this beautiful night, there is not a single nuclear missilepointed at an American child.” This was a line in one of President Clinton’sstock speeches – a line that always evoked great applause But it was a lie, aspointed out by the military officer who was at his side carrying the nuclearcipher by which the president could cause the launch of American missiles,should the threat suddenly emerge Had what the president was saying beentrue, there would not have been any need for the cipher to be nearby –

no need for deterrence Perhaps Clinton thought his statement was true,because he once lost the cipher completely, so little attention did he pay

it.6Clinton’s misinforming the American people about this danger shouldremind us that there are two sorts of dishonesty with which a president candeceive the American people – the lie that danger is greater than it actually

is, and the lie that danger is not as great as it actually is

We are indeed somewhat safer now than during the height of the ColdWar, because the threat of a large-scale nuclear exchange among the greatpowers has been reduced But we are not safer because our enemies havebecome friends – as our public culture would have it, via the harmonismand convergence illusions – but because our enemies are weaker than theywere The inability of many Americans to accept this – because they hopefor a world better than it is – is one of the great limitations in America’sability to defend itself sensibly

But as utopia – the peaceful world so longed for by our public culture andpromised by President Clinton – beckons, up rears the ugly head of nationalrivalries

The first presidential debate of 2004 took place strictly within the itations of the public culture There was little or no mention of securityconcerns involving Russia or China, and just a brief mention of in refer-ence to North Korea Neither candidate discussed where Iraq fits into theoverall U.S world situation, other than Senator John Kerry’s assertion thathow we’ve dealt with Iraq has hurt our standing in the world Instead, thecandidates said the following:

lim-Both endorsed preemption

Both said what they thought what the biggest threat to the US: Kerry said nuclearproliferation, Bush said nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists

90 American Public Culture and the World

Each candidate declared that he has a grand vision For Bush, it is the US oning democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East For Kerry, it wasthe US avoiding conflict by acting in concert with other big powers.7

champi-The discussion reflected the romanticism about the American position

in the world that is embedded in our public culture Bush stressed romanticcrusaderism, championing democracy all over the world, whereas Kerrystressed an equally romantic notion of multilateralism Neither dared sug-gest that any other nation, with the possible exception of the North Koreansand the Iranians, were acting in anything but good faith – the type of illusion

we have labeled harmonism

Indeed, by the closing weeks of the 2004 presidential campaign, most ofthe media was irresponsibly partisan, and everything published had a hidden(or not so hidden) agenda of support of for one candidate or the other Therewas little real news – only stories colored to advance a candidate’s chances.Nuances of terminology were always partisan Anything that could be seizedand used against a candidate was used, without regard to substantiation;and even, in some instances, in flagrant disregard of a lack of substantiation(e.g., Kerry’s charge that Bush had failed in his duty to protect Americanservicemen when stockpiles of Iraqi high explosives were found to be missingfrom an Iraqi ammunition dump It turned out that the munitions had beenmissing before American troops arrived at the dump in the early weeks ofthe war)

Presidents sometimes argue for anticipation as a better strategy thanreaction or resilience (as did Franklin Roosevelt before World War II), butour nation has historically preferred reaction, despite its enormous cost,because we cannot ever assure ourselves that the danger we anticipated wasreal since the party out of office cannot resist the temptation to maintainthat there was really no danger at all and so no need for action The twinpillars of today’s public culture – harmonism and convergence – reinforcethe wishful thought that there is no danger that requires anticipation

Political partisanship is driving accurate information out of the Americansystem – either because the media are playing the political game themselvesand doctoring their reporting to that purpose, or because the intensity ofpolitical controversy, involving leaks and demonization of opponents, causespeople with information to keep silent This is rather like how the threat ofviolence keeps people from informing on criminal activities

During the antiterrorist campaign, there has been primarily partisan icism – the content of which is always predictable because it is partisan, andunconvincing because it is predictable

crit-The Sources of Our Illusions 91

Our presidents are not fools They know when they are pandering to theillusions of the public culture; they know that the realities of geopolitics arequite different They sense the constraints placed on their actions and words

by the public culture and reflexively try to loosen them Their adversariespush in the opposite direction The resulting tug of war sometimes leads tounpremeditated, gradual, and often unpredictable modifications in publicculture

Alexis de Tocqueville commented that in America some are raised to thecommon level in human knowledge that drives politics in America and someare lowered to it.8We call that common level public culture, and recognizethat there is a difference between one who is raised to it versus one who

is lowered to it Those who are raised to the public culture do not fullyunderstand it They accept it and play by its rules In contrast, those wholower themselves to it are choosing to play according to the rules of the publicculture, though they see other alternative ways of being and thinking outsidethe public culture construct Presidents sometimes fall in this category, as

do many of their advisors

There are consequences As Americans latch on to a sanctioned beliefsystem provided by our public culture they develop an unhealthy fear ofhonest brokers of information “One of the worst by-products of our ven-omously partisan political culture is a growing distrust of anyone whoclaims to be nonpartisan Red and blue combatants have systematicallyattacked the credibility of a wide variety of professionals whose jobs requireobjectivity: judges, pollsters, economists – and particularly journalists.Many of these same crusaders have simultaneously worked to under-

mine the very professional standards that all of these occupations havedeveloped to promote neutrality In the news business, things have

gotten so bad that the term ‘mainstream media’ has actually become anepithet. Problem is, imposing higher standards would drive up the cost of

journalism while cutting its dramatic value. The plain truth is that

opin-ionated content is often simpler, snappier, and less expensive to produce

than objective content.”9

92 American Public Culture and the World

Interestingly, the public culture is formed not by the reporting of events

as much as by the meaning that an event is given In this way it is muchlike the party line of a totalitarian state We first noticed this surprisingsimilarity several decades ago in the Soviet Union Our Soviet hosts wouldlisten surreptitiously at night to the English-language radio broadcasts ofthe Voice of America and the BBC in order to obtain information aboutdevelopments in the world (Incidentally, the Russian language broadcasts

of the VOA and the BBC were jammed by the Soviets, so that only theintelligentsia who understood English, and were largely Communist Partymembers, were able to get their news via this illegal but tolerated means.)Then the next morning the intelligentsia would read Pravda – the journal

of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – to find out the meaninggiven to events by the Party Often Pravda, printed in Russian and availablebroadly, didn’t report the news, but only the interpretation – relying on itsmore sophisticated readers to have received news via the English-languagebroadcasts

So it was that our Soviet hosts and ourselves, Americans, had the sameinformation as to world events, but gave them dramatically different inter-pretations

It is by such a device in America that the public culture persists despiteopenness about reporting events That is, a free press is not sufficient to arealistic interpretation of what is happening in the world

In America events – the “news” – is reported reasonably accurately, often

as well as reporters can do it, but then its meaning is often exaggerated

or given a twist (when the White House does this, it is called “spin”).The meaning of the event or events is distorted to fit a particular politi-cal agenda In this way, the media and politicians can claim accuracy as toreporting the news, yet be wildly inaccurate as to the significance of theevent

Newspapers direct the meaning of a news story by leaving to editorialdirectors the headlines on a story Less commonly do they alter a story itself,and when that happens a reporter often objects that it is a violation ofjournalistic ethics TV accomplishes the same objective by what context isgiven a story in a news broadcast, and by how much of the event is related

It is by such devices that the public culture is manipulated and reinforcedcontinually

Possibly in America the CIA is best at this game It documents carefully Itcomposes a balanced assessment of outside “authoritative” opinion, but thenfalsifies one or two things Almost no one catches on, except in extreme situa-tions – as in the case of the weapons of mass destruction not found in Iraq, or

The Sources of Our Illusions 93

in the case of the underestimates in the Cold War of Soviet military ties and the overestimates, also in the Cold War, of Soviet economic growth

capabili-JOURNALISTSNews reporters are extremely important in our political life, and they aregenerally well intentioned in trying to do an honest and professional job Butthere are fewer of them; they have less resources with which to work; theyare employed for increasingly commercially oriented businesses that try tomanipulate their reporting; they are subject to the direction of news direc-tors who have motives that are primarily commercial (including the ratingscompetitions) rather than professional; and they are subjected to increas-ingly ham-handed interference in their work by courts – it’s no wonder thatthey are increasingly forced to lean on the public culture for assistance intheir work

Journalists rely on our public culture because it provides a frame for thenews and gives it meaning “In order for an event to reach the public, itmust first be viewed by reporters, then related in stories. Journalists help

mold public understanding and opinion by deciding what is important andwhat may be ignored, what is subject to debate and what is beyond ques-tion, and what is true and false ,” wrote Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Dean of

the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication, in

a study she coauthored “The critical variable is usually not the facts selves but the manner in which they are arranged and interpreted in order

them-to construct narratives. Because the terms we use to describe the world

determine the ways we see it, those who control the language control theargument. The language, stories and images become filters through

which we make sense of the political world, alter the facts that are deemed

important, [and] the ways in which fact is framed and frames come to beassumed .”10

It is the public culture that provides the framing for most news stories.The facts are framed by the public culture; when they are reported as newsstories, the public culture is reinforced; and the frames (that is, the publicculture itself) comes to be assumed

Journalist is a broad term that includes news reporters, and enterprise reporters, pundits, and analysts They provide basic information,deciding what is or is not newsworthy The stories are based on a carefulcalculation of what fits into the prevailing public culture “ Reportersdetermine whether a proposal is considered ‘reasonable’ in public debate

investigative-in large part by whether it is embraced by elite figures,” Jamieson writes

94 American Public Culture and the World

“Reporters have a bias toward the use of official sources, a bias towardinformation that can be obtained quickly, a bias toward conflict, a biastoward focusing on discrete events rather than persistent conditions, and abias toward the simple over the complex .”11

Much of the public culture has its origins in experts of various sorts whotell us something we want to hear, harmonism or convergence According

to V O Key, journalists and the media largely transmit the ideas of othersmuch as a trucking company carries books to a book store The trucker is notresponsible for the books content; nor the media for the ideas it transmits.12

If this is true, we can dig further into what the experts do and what theyread “ If we are interested in the quality of information reaching the

public, we must understand how it is manufactured, which is to say, wemust understand the politics of expert communities as they relate to thegeneration and diffusion of knowledge claims, policy recommendationsand general frames of reference.”13

This extensive effort, to understand the politics of expert communities, isbeyond the scope of this book, but is admirably addressed in John R Zaller’s,

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion.

The public culture offers reporters an easily accessible frame for vidual leaders and confining the leaders within it In the context of publicculture complex national figures become simple For instance, the mediahas simplified and distorted the personality of President Bush, so that he isbelieved by many Americans, especially among the elite, to be a person oflimited intelligence And yet he is one of the two most educated of all ourpresidents (Andover, Yale, and Harvard, for Bush; Woodrow Wilson had aPh.D from John Hopkins), and managed to get himself elected presidenttwice, when the candidates of those who despise his supposed ignorancefailed

indi-The strength of a story frame with journalists is very great – it persistsdespite evidence to the contrary, or in ambiguous settings For example,during the 2004 Presidential election Bush’s supposed limited intelligencewas contrasted unfavorably with the supposedly superior intelligence of theDemocratic candidate, John Kerry When, in the spring of 2005, John Kerry’sgrades at Yale (which both Kerry and Bush attended as undergraduates) werereleased to the media, and turned out to be very similar to Bush’s, the storycould have been that Bush was smarter than had been realized, as smart

as Kerry Instead, the original frame of the story prevailed, and the reportswere that Kerry had turned out to be as dumb as Bush

Furthermore, the public culture seems determined to ignore that Bushhas been elected to governorship of Texas, a state in which his credentials

The Sources of Our Illusions 95

of Ivy League education would ordinarily be fatal to a politician The fact

is that he is very smart – smart enough to avoid being labeled an elitist inTexas and smart enough to be twice elected president But as we point out,

he came to the presidency poorly informed about international affairs, as domost American presidents (though not all), and there is much to criticize inhis policies But to do so on the basis of his alleged lack of intelligence is tofall into the simplifying trap of public culture as transmitted to us throughthe media

Reporters and political analysts operate in two parallel universes – thepublic culture and a better informed subculture Reformers ask that newsreporters and pundits aspire to be in the well-informed subculture – fitting

“the story to the facts, not the facts to the story.”14

It would be nice if this were to happen; it is devoutly to be desired Butexpecting it to happen is simply more wishful thinking, largely because ofthe influence of commercial media firms on what the news is

COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISES

No serious reporter wants to be seen as a propagandist, or a shill “One

of the great attributes of journalists is their almost religious insistence onindependence. [But] a major factor determining what media content gets

produced is the structure of economic and legal support for the media.”15

It was in the aftermath of World War II that media businesses began torestrict news operations William R Shirer noticed changes at CBS in theearly 1950s, especially in connection with the national anticommunist hys-teria Businesses who advertised on CBS news wanted a say in the way thenews was presented, and, more significantly, what content was acceptable

“Should a shaving cream company, or any other company that advertises

on a network, determine whom the public should hear broadcasting newsand comment, and by its selection make certain that the public will hearwhat the company wishes it to hear – most likely a narrow and conserva-tive view of events? Or does the responsibility belong to the network?”16

In The Powers That Be, David Halberstam reports that Murrow and Fred

Friendly, Murrow’s producer at “See It Now” on CBS, were limited by certainadvertisers in getting the message out quickly on the lies and deceptions ofMcCarthy in naming communists and other anti-Americans.17

Media businesses succeed financially largely as a result of advertising enue, which is determined by the size of the audiences they attract In thecompetition for audience, they hurry stories in order to be first to break them;they simplify content; and they attempt to fit audience predispositions In

rev-96 American Public Culture and the World

all this, they follow most of the time the public culture Their job is not toeducate; nor even to inform their audiences, but to attract audiences withpopular programming If information leads to that result, it may be pursued;

if it doesn’t, news programming becomes little more than like features, and newspaper stories become the sensationalism of thetabloids

magazine-The self-interest of the media businesses, therefore, is closely tied to thecontinuance of public culture, for two reasons:

r Staying within the limits of public culture helps gather an audience,

because people are comfortable with the frame of reference; and

r Conforming to the public culture saves the business money because it gives

meaning to news reports without the business having to spend money todetermine its actual meaning

Thus, from both the revenue (or audience) side and from the expense side

a profit-oriented media business has strong incentives to conform to andreinforce the public culture

PRESIDENTS AND MEDIAWhen President George W Bush commented that he doesn’t read thenewspapers, he was condemned for it by some observers They saw him

as ignorant and dumb and evidencing both by ignoring the media But amore charitable interpretation is that the president receives a lengthy briefing

on the international situation each morning, so that he has his informationfrom unusually reliable sources that are quite up -to -date, and what themedia provides is so often wrong and dated that it provides not informationbut disinformation to him So he ignores it Also, he has political advisorswho read the papers for political spin, so he need not spend his time doingthat

During an earlier but more difficult time in our nation’s history PresidentLincoln walked each day from the White House to the telegraph office inthe War Department where he waited by the hour for bulletins from thearmies in the field, and looking at newspapers not for information but only

to ascertain what the editors were thinking and what the public was beingtold, no matter how erroneous it was In capsule, Lincoln read the papers tosee what the editors knew; what they invented; and the spin they put onthe two The situation then, 150 years ago, was not much different for thepresident than now.18

The Sources of Our Illusions 97

The president’s access to information and knowledge of events is verydifferent from that of the public This isn’t a great thing for a democracy,but it’s what we have The president, if he wishes to master the illusionfostered by the media, must provide the public with a large and crediblebody of information Rarely does an administration do so

Public culture exerts a very strong influence on American politics What

we call public culture is akin to Stephen Skowronek’s concept of a “regime,”

a particular public philosophy of the role of government at a given time.19

In fact, Skowronek’s regime is a significant part of our concept of the publicculture Skowronek sees presidential success in affiliating and expressingthe particular regime of the times His is a formal expression of the efforts

of American presidential candidates (and most of our presidents remaincandidates while in office) to follow – not lead – the public by discoveringthe public culture – convictions, prejudices, and misconceptions included –and identifying closely with them It reminds one of the old irony: the bestway to lead is to find a parade and get in front of it

Although Skowronek seems to see the changing regimes as lent, and so seems to applaud politicians who successfully identify withthem and thereby are elected to office, public culture (his “regime”) has adarker side Public culture invites Americans to lose focus; to shift agendas;and in so doing to overreach It is, fact, a profound flaw in the Westernintellect

benevo-Because the public culture is at variance with reality, although it appears

to presidents to be a refuge, it is in fact a trap Its expectations cannot

be fulfilled, so that disillusion and disappointment are inevitable for theelectorate When this happens, the protectors of the public culture, includingthe media, business interests and other politicians will turn on the president,and his popularity will collapse

Despite the danger, or because they fail to perceive it, American idents rarely challenge the popular culture no matter what the situation.Thus, President George W Bush justified intervention in Iraq as necessary

pres-to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and pres-to build democracy, beingunwilling to discuss the issues of global politics that forced him to act Wewill see in later pages that in this he was just like President John Kennedy,President Lyndon Johnson and others

In searching for a safe political home in the public culture, the BushAdministration brought itself to a substantial overreach The Administrationbegan the war on terror with a broad, careful, long-term, strategic clarity thatwas expressed in the National Security Policy Statement of the United States

98 American Public Culture and the World

issued in September, 2002 But it saw a short-term political advantage, so itexaggerated the terrorist threat and its own response, won the congressionalelections in the fall of 2002, then tripped into the pit of distorted expectationsthat it had itself dug

For example, in Iraq we set out to do one thing and ended up doinganother Writing in November, 2003, Zell Miller, a Democratic Senatorfrom Georgia, expressed his support for Republican candidate Bush in theconflict in Iraq “This is our best chance,” said Senator Miller, “to changethe course of history in the Middle East.”20How is the course of history to

be changed? The idea is apparently that a democratic, free enterprise Iraqwould be built to be a model for the rest of the region; so that Egypt, SaudiArabia, Syria, and Iran would follow by becoming more democratic andmore like us economically This is a remarkably ambitious agenda!

America started out to deny terrorism shelter in the region and totry to prevent our adversaries from obtaining weapons of mass destruc-tion, and now we’re engaged in trying to build a wholly different MiddleEast

We overreached because our public culture required that our actionsthere to be legitimized in moral terms – not only as attacking terrorism, but

as trying to build a world of democracy and free enterprise So partisans

on both side of the political aisles sought to twist the agenda into thatframework Yet, it’s wishful thinking to believe that we can achieve the goal.After all, we’ve been preaching democracy since the American Revolutionmore than two hundred years ago, and its progress in the world is haltingand imperfect – driven more by our victory in the three world wars (First,Second, and Cold) than by persuasion, and implemented in much of theworld more in pretense than in reality (that is, many of what we today calldemocracies in the world are not that at all)

The Iraqi situation is a classic and serious example of the application ofthe public culture to our actions abroad, even when initiated in our defense.Thomas Friedman, classifying himself as a liberal and a leftist, argued forsupport from the left of President Bush’s attempt to build democracy inIraq in the following terms: “ here’s why the left needs to get beyond itsopposition to the war and start pitching in with its own ideas and moralsupport to try to make lemons into lemonade in Baghdad First, even thoughthe Bush team came to this theme late in the day, this war is the mostimportant liberal, revolutionary U.S democracy-building project since theMarshall Plan The primary focus of U.S forces in Iraq today is erecting adecent, legitimate, tolerant, pluralistic representative government from theground up I don’t know if we can pull this off We got off to an unnecessarily

The Sources of Our Illusions 99

bad start But it is one of the noblest things this country has ever attemptedabroad and it is a moral and strategic imperative that we give it our bestshot.”

He then adds a single sentence that sums up the wishful thinking, “Unless

we begin the long process of partnering with the Arab world to dig it out ofthe developmental hole it’s in, this angry, frustrated region is going to spewout threats to world peace forever.”21

Thus, Iraq has become a theater of overreach that threatens to stretch ourresources too thin and undercut an effective response to the more significantchallenges that are now and will be presented by Russia, China, and nuclear-armed rogue states We got to this situation via the temptations of publicculture It is the combination of wishful thinking about cause and effectwith the desire for a moral imperative to justify actions taken originally

in self-defense that characterize the American public culture approach todefense issues today and tempts our president to commit us to extremegoals

Yet Americans are outgrowing some of the extreme elements in our publicculture We are increasingly aware that it is all right to pursue nationalsecurity without trying simultaneously to attain other major goals promoted

by our public culture; and we are accepting that self-defense is itself a moralimperative This is a crucial part of the new maturity of the American people,but is not enough appreciated by our political leaders

CHAPTER 5: KEY POINTS

1 The wishful thinking of the American public projects good motivesonto people who lack them, until events prove different Often that isvery late to begin to defend ourselves

2 Wishful thinking is reinforced by elements of the media and our ical activists who invent information or who place on events interpre-tations which mask their reality We call these people mythomaniacsbecause they are addicted to fables for the purpose of personal advan-tage, commercial or political

polit-3 The desire for peace is not an element of myth in the public culturealone Most of us hope for peace Our criticism of public culture isbecause we fear it threatens peace with its illusions

4 Americans need to look at U.S politics with the harsh objectivity ofAmerican moderates – who view with concern extremist tendencies inboth our major parties, and yet know they must choose between them

at election time

100 American Public Culture and the World

5 American presidents must deal with the public culture as a key element

of the context in which they lead the nation They must avoid beingdeceived by it (accepting it as true), and they must fashion explana-tions of their actions with it constantly in mind There is a temptation

to fashion explanations that are consistent with public culture, eventhough the explanations are false

part three

AMERICAN PUBLIC CULTURE

AND OURSELVES

101

102

Champions of Freedom or Imperialists

How We’re Perceived

Americans see big differences among ourselves; some of us are conservatives,

some liberals; some are Republicans, some Democrats Some are moderates,

a few are radicals (of either the left or the right) Looked at from abroad,

except among a few people who make it their business to be very familiar

with our politics, these distinctions are very hard to perceive Americans

seem a lot alike There seems little difference among the political parties,

and less among the candidates they offer for president Many, perhaps most,

Europeans, for example, were stunned during the 2004 presidential

cam-paign debates when both candidates (Kerry and Bush) endorsed military

preemption against threats from abroad What stand out to others are the

things we have in common; and the most evident of these is our public

culture – its optimism and its illusions

HOW WE AND OTHERS SEE US

A most important element of our public culture is our view of ourselves It’s

shaped by the same forces (wishful thinking, partisan politics, and media

commercialism) as are other elements of our public culture, and it is reflected

in misapprehensions and misinformation as well Our politicians and our

media tell us what we want to hear about ourselves But our self-image is

more complex and self-contradictory than other parts of our public culture

This is most easily seen when we contrast our self-image with the perception

of America abroad

Americans are perceived increasingly badly abroad The reality is complex,

because America is still seen as a beacon of liberty and well-being in the

world, but American activities abroad are less and less admired Our own

view of ourselves is much more favorable, but has a major contradictory

element of self-criticism

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104 American Public Culture and Ourselves

The American self-image is so confused today (part self-worship, partEuropean-style self-hatred) that we need reassurance about our role in theworld So we turn to the positive side of our self-image for rationalizations

of our actions abroad that are consistent with our public culture Because wethink ourselves true democrats, we find it easy to rationalize interventionsabroad as in pursuit of democracy, rather than objectively as an attempt todefend ourselves aggressively and protect our interests abroad

We are now told as if it were a profound truth by many Europeans thatthe American President is hated all over the world, and it is not good for theUnited States – so we must do something to change our image, and they, ofcourse, have suggestions as how best to accomplish that by accommodatingourselves to their positions “Yes,” we might reply, “but how did this terriblereputation come about?” Bush is in fact their victim, the victim of the corrup-tion of the European leadership by Saddam Hussein via the United NationsOil for Peace program; and the victim of demonization (extended to ourentire country) by the President of France and the Chancellor of Germany

in pursuit of their attempt to extend and unite Europe

Having blackened Bush’s name (and that of America), the same Europeansnow want to turn the situation to their further advantage by treating it as

a fact of life independent of their doing This is how politics are played indemocracies, and how democratic leaders play politics in the internationalarena

PRESIDENT BUSH’S IMAGE OF AMERICANS VERSUS THE VIEW

FROM ABROAD

We have a place, all of us, in a long story – a story we continue, but whose end wewill not see It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of theold, a story of a slaveholding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of

a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not toconquer It is the American story. We are not this story’s author, but another who

fills time and eternity with his purpose Yet his purpose is achieved in our duty, andour duty is fulfilled in service to one another. This work continues George W.

Bush, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 2001

In the president’s eyes, we Americans are participants in a plan theAlmighty has for bringing freedom to humanity all over the globe Thepresident and many other Americans see ourselves this way, while much ofthe rest of the world sees us differently

For example, America’s traditional culture and much of its domesticpolitics have a bias toward Puritanism Our popular culture, in dramaticcontrast, has a bias toward commercialism, licentiousness, and exalting

How We’re Perceived 105

violence – no longer excepting sports1 and art.2 In consequence, many –

some polls say most – Americans think of themselves as religious and

ethi-cal, while much of the outside world sees us as amoral and corrupt

Second, American politics is ordinarily obsessed with domestic issues

and ignores foreign policy Yet increasingly we police the world and are now

engaged in at two major military operations that go beyond peace-keeping

(Iraq and Afghanistan) So Americans see ourselves as normally detached

from matters abroad while the outside world sees us as interventionist

Third, we Americans see ourselves as champions of a free market

econ-omy, but we have lots of regulations and subsidies and protections for

par-ticular industries So we see ourselves as free marketers and others see us

protectionists

How can we reconcile these divergent views? We can’t We have both

ele-ments in our character and in our behavior Our politics is full of arguele-ments

over which course to take in every specific situation

Just like President Bush, most Americans think well of our country and its

motives But many people abroad and some at home have a far more negative

view of us We are viewed not as liberators, but as seeking to control other

nations for our own ends, that is, as imperialists; not as bringers of freedom,

but as threats to world peace; not as agents of God’s truth, but as hypocrites

who clothe our real interests in moralisms

Favorable views of the United States have declined in nearly every country

since the invasion of Iraq.3Probably the negative opinions that most sting

Americans, and that make us wonder if we really are off the track, are those

of Western Europeans, to whom we are most closely related by history But

we must remember that Western Europeans are a people consumed by

self-dislike There are numerous examples of this, but a recent one involves the

award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003 to a white South African

novelist In its announcement of the award the Royal Swedish Academy of

Sciences praised in particular the laureate’s “ruthless criticism of the cruel

rationalism and cosmetic morality of Western civilization.”4 It is striking

that the intellectual leadership of a country that is a member of Western

civilization thinks so little of its own civilization The Swedes do not seem

to be unusual in Europe in this regard It is not surprising, in light of this,

that Europeans find Americans, most of whom still believe in the value of

Western civilization, fit targets for criticism and contempt

“States on the European continent regard the English-speaking peoples

as ‘masters in the art of concealing their selfish national interests in the guise

of the general good,’ wrote an historian, adding that ‘this kind of hypocrisy

is a special and characteristic peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon mind.”5

Is there merit in this view?

106 American Public Culture and Ourselves

WHAT POLLS SAYPublic opinion polling has come to play a very important role in Americanpolitics It is now moving onto the international stage, and will begin to shapeour international relations and our view of ourselves The Pew Foundation,for example, conducted what is probably the largest effort ever to measurepublic opinion internationally, involving questions asked of some thirty-eight thousand people

In some ways, enhanced international polling is very good; but it alsooffers a profound danger It is good because we will better understand how

we are perceived abroad; the danger is that we might shape our policies

to affect world public opinion of ourselves, rather than to determine andpursue those policies that are consistent with what is best as we see it

We must remember that there are serious limitations to polls First, there

is the question as to whether or not the samples (that is the people tioned) are representative of the whole populations of the countries polled.Second, there is the question whether or not in dictatorships, where themedia is tightly censored, there is in fact any independent public opinion,

ques-or whether poll results are not simply reflecting what the populace has beentold by government Third, poll results reflect the questions asked, and manypollsters design questions with biases Because in much of the world reliablesamples are hard to obtain, public opinion is highly shaped by governmentpropaganda, and questions reflect biases, polls of foreign opinion are subject

to considerably greater unreliability than are domestic polls The Pew polls,for example, are subject to criticism on each of the three grounds givenabove

Given their limitations, it’s significant that in the polls as America hasbecome increasingly assertive internationally, negative views held abroad ofAmerica are increasing Polls show that many people believe the main reasonAmerica went to war in Iraq was to get control of Iraqi oil And frighteningly,actual majorities in some countries have supported suicide bombings.6

“‘The war has widened the rift between Americans and Western peans, further inflamed the Muslim world, softened support for the war onterrorism, and significantly weakened global public support for the pillars

Euro-of the post–World War II era – the U.N and the North Atlantic alliance,’said Andrew Kohut, the Pew center’s director

Here is what is perhaps a moderate view of Americans, a view that

is somewhere in between that of President Bush and that of those whodespise us abroad It’s a candid account of her perceptions of America by ayoung woman whose antecedents are in India, is now a Canadian citizen,

How We’re Perceived 107

played in the world’s professional tennis tour, and graduated from Harvard

College

“Before I went to the United States for college, I was part of a Canadian

society that saw America as a land of more opportunity with fewer

con-straints on the individual In America, success is celebrated not discouraged;

competition is promoted not hidden; the winner takes all; hard work is

rewarded But in Canada, Americans were seen as generally more ignorant

than Canadians Canadians recounted with pride how Americans would

stow a Canadian flag on their nap sacks when backpacking around Europe

because Canadians were liked better than Americans abroad America was

seen as a fast-paced consumer-society that didn’t care about quality of life

or the welfare of its people as much as in Canada

“In America at first sight it’s dazzling to have everything and anything at

your disposal America is, without a doubt, the biggest and best play ground

for any young dreamer

“Perhaps America has been more like Clark Kent all these years and has

now been given the opportunity to make a quick telephone booth change

to reveal the red cape, stripes, and stars that were always proudly worn

underneath, always knowing it was a Superhero, but now events are calling

it forth

“America has become so competent and capable internally that it seems

to exist somewhat apart from the rest of the world In the world, America’s

like a new kid on the block who never quite fit in with the others who’ve been

around for a while, and decided to become his own best friend And by the

new kid focusing on his own self-sufficiency, there developed a capability

that has everyone else in awe.”

What are Americans: agents of God’s plan for humanity (as President Bush

would have us) or violent grasping hypocrites (as many see us abroad)? Or

are we simply an independent, vigorous people who care little for each other,

as a more moderate but nonetheless critical view has it? The answer is that

we are each of the above, but in an orderly way of which a person can make

sense

At the core of the American self-image from the very beginning has been

the notion that America is a model for mankind, a place in which humanity

could start over, leaving behind the inequities of the old world and building

a better new world Thus it was that the first settlers of New England, the first

large-scale migration to what is now the United States, spoke – in an image

borrowed from the Bible – of their colony as a city on a hill, built to enlighten

mankind Americans strive at times to live up to this high conception of us

and our nation

108 American Public Culture and Ourselves

But we often fall short, and have from the beginning Religion and therole of Americans as God’s agents is a key element of the character of ournation, but from the beginning there has been also a strong commercialmotive and other motives less than admirable And these cross-currents ofthe American character continue today

There is much falling away of America from its highest ideals, and muchself-doubts The highest conception of America’s role in the world was that

of the Puritans who settled New England, but they too had their limitations.What most Americans know today of the Puritan settlement is limited tothe Salem witch trials and to a misconception of them so that the termPuritan today connotes superstitious brutality and hypocritical and sterilemoralism Thus, many Americans are uncomfortable with their heritage asmoral leaders for the world – conflicted about the core of our character

Self-government is a commitment also at the core of our national acter But self-government has always been an imperfect process, full in ourcountry, as in most, with imperfections Our legislatures and our electorateare very susceptible to enthusiasms, fears, and wild changes of mood Inconsequence, we often stray a long way from our better motivations Weoften fail to live up to our pretensions

char-THE COMPLEX CHARACTER OF AMERICA

It was Winston Churchill, an Englishman half American (on his mother’sside) and who knew America well, both from personal visits and as an ally

in two world wars, who best caught both strains of the American character,and thereby made sense of the paradox that we are: “You can always trustthe United States to do the right thing,” Churchill once observed, adding,

“after it has exhausted every other possibility.”

In this single statement Churchill identified both the utopian and istic element of America – “you can always trust the United States to do theright thing .” – and the self-aggrandizing, confused and often incompe-

moral-tent means by which we often go about it – “after it has exhausted everyother possibility.” Also implicit in Churchill’s observation is the patienceand great resources of America, we have time and strength to do thingswrong again and again and yet find the right course and prevail in the end.Churchill captured America as it has always been and remains today – point-ing toward the right and lurching from one side to the other as we try to getthere

Following Churchill’s line of thought we should ask now, and the questionmay well serve as a key theme for this book, “We Americans have emerged

How We’re Perceived 109

at this moment as a leading nation in the world, how close are we to finding

the right thing to do, and what other things are we trying now in mistaken

efforts?”

Thus, the key question isn’t one on which the media seems to focus – how

does the world regard us – but instead is how well will we play our role –

how quickly will we find the right thing to do, and how effectively do it?

A reason why so many people in the world view Americans as hypocrites

is that we often recognize only the side of our personality that searches for

the right thing to do, and we ignore the side of our personality that is selfish,

grasping and often misguided For example, one of our best sociologists

describes Americans this way:

“Americans are utopian moralists who press hard to

institutional-ize virtue, to destroy evil people, and eliminate wicked institutions and

practices.”7He has spelled out in modern language the better side of our

character, and has implied, by spelling out nothing else, that there is only

this side Americans, he seems to be saying, have no dark side But this is

nonsense Denying the dark side of our collective personality reflects, in

psychoanalytic terms, the need for superego rules to guide what is for us

risky emotional choice making

As this dichotomy in our character plays out in international relations, our

people think of our nation as having altruistic motives while our political

leaders and diplomats act in a much more self-serving manner As one

commentator says, “Our people think of our nation one way, and our policy

makers act another.”8

Unfortunately, when there is this sort of ambivalence in the national

consciousness, there is always the danger that coherence will be lost Today

there is confusion at the top level – with the rapidity and omnipresence

of modern communications, it’s become difficult to keep the two attitudes

apart, their inconsistency becomes blatant, and our politicians get caught in

confusion of rhetoric and conviction as they try to cover over their apparent,

even obvious, hypocrisy

SELF-DECEPTIVE DUPLICITYAmericans are not alone in self-delusion that suggests hypocrisy In the

immediate aftermath of the September 2001, attacks, the United States

declared our commitment to defending ourselves with all instruments at

our disposal including multinational cooperation, but reserving the right

to do more if “friends” didn’t want to share the effort and risk At that time,

every major power made statements of public support But in the months

110 American Public Culture and Ourselves

that followed, support slipped dramatically until, when America addressedthe issue of Iraq, most of it slipped away entirely Why did this happen?

At the root of the situation was that the United States had been attackedand was a target, and the other major powers were not, at least not in the wayand from the same antagonists America had been attacked, and expected

to be attacked again – Europe had not and did not; nor, in the same waydid Russia and China In the immediate aftermath of the September 11attacks surprise, horror, and sympathy evoked support for America; but astime wore on, national interests reasserted themselves Other countries werenot targets, and so took a different view of what needed to be done thandid America Even where there was a possible identity of danger – whereAmerica’s enemies might strike others as well – it was easy for other coun-tries to let America carry the load of response Other countries had theirown national interests, and so began to object to American policies thatinterfered

Probably China had the least direct potential involvement in Americanaction in Iraq, and so seemed to appreciate America’s new realism about theworld, though the Western media, ever uncertain how to deal with a factthat seemed inconsistent with a dominant story line, reported the opposite –giving publicity to pro-forma Chinese denunciations of U.S policy whileignoring Chinese efforts to see that a war did in fact occur

The Russians focused quickly on what most concerned them – the BushDoctrine’s assertion of a right to preemptive self-defense – exactly whatAmerica was pursuing in Iraq The declaration by the United States, of theright to conduct preventive strikes as an intrinsic extension of the right of

a nation to self-defense, has been repeatedly criticized in the Russian press.Yet, here are two quotations: “If anyone tries to use weapons commensuratewith weapons of mass destruction against our country, we will respondwith measures adequate to the threat In all locations where the terrorists,

or organizers of the crime, or their ideological or financial sponsors are Iunderline, no matter where they are.” And, “In such cases, and I officiallyconfirm this, we will strike This includes preventive strikes.”

“Who are these hawks,” asks a Russian commentator, “preaching a cept of preventive strikes violating the sacred principle of national statesovereignty? Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, CondoleezzaRice?” No, not at all, he observes The first quote comes from PresidentVladimir Putin’s speech on October 28, 2002 The second is a statement

con-by Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, made even earlier, on September 22,

2002 “Vladimir Putin’s declaration was an official order by the SupremeCommander-in-Chief to the appropriate government agencies to develop

How We’re Perceived 111

a new Russian military doctrine that would include the concept of

preven-tive strikes in response to threats against which the traditional deterrence

concept proved ineffective.”9

Some of the sharpest turns in public opinion took place in Western

Europe, where, for example, more than 60 percent of the French and the

Germans held a favorable view of the United States before the Iraqi War

After a difficult dispute over whether the United Nations should authorize

the Iraq War, follow-up polls showed that positive views of the United States

had dwindled to 45 percent in Germany, 43 percent in France, and even

38 percent in Spain, where the government supported the war

ACCUSATIONS OF IMPERIALISMSome foreign observers now insist that the United States has actually sought

its preeminence in the world – that we are closet imperialists – a nation that is

imperialist while denying it To a large degree, this argument would seem to

be based on two sorts of spurious logic The first is that whatever has occurred

must have been intended, or it wouldn’t have happened – specifically that

the United States is now a superpower with reach across the globe, and

must have intended to be so or it couldn’t have happened The error in the

logic is of course that there are unintended consequences often, even for

nations, and that the United States has in fact gotten where it is without

ever intending to be so, a topic to which we return in a different context

in thenext chapter The second error of logic is to label the United States’

current position in the world as imperialism, when it is in fact something

quite different We’ll return to that error later in this chapter

Imperialism is applied to America because it is a pejorative term, implying

some type of unwarranted domination But ordinarily, our country doesn’t’

seek dominion It seeks security through superiority, and through a strategy

appropriate for our time That is not imperialism

We can become imperialist – seizing the territory of other nations and

directly administering it We can probably get away with this, but it’s not

something Americans are likely to want to do, despite being charged by some

commentators – adversaries and friends alike – with intending to build an

empire But empire building is not our way Speaking of the positions of the

British and French in the peace conferences at the end of World War I, George

C Marshall, then General Pershing’s chief aide (Pershing was commanding

general of American forces in Europe), said, “We had no thought of colonies;

they thought of little else.”10America doesn’t think of colonies any more

today than then, and thankfully, neither today do the British or the French

112 American Public Culture and Ourselves

This is another reason why speaking of “imperialism” today is misleading.Imperialism meant colonies, and today colonies are pass´e

There’s more to the argument that the United States is imperialist thanspurious logic and a desire to do harm; there’s also historical evidenceoffered, especially from the nineteenth century The new argument pointsfirst to the thrust of the United States across the North American conti-nent and calls this imperialism, but the contest America fought with Spain,Mexico, France, and Britain for the north American continent was less animperial projection of power abroad, than the efforts of a nation to protectand expand its own borders Expansionist these efforts were; imperialist,not at all

The new argument points second to America’s miserable, limited, hearted effort at the end of the nineteenth century to join the Europeanpowers in obtaining foreign colonies – an effort that netted for the UnitedStates the Philippine Islands, Guam, and Puerto Rico, and no more, whereasotherwise the United States left to the European powers their colonies inAfrica and Asia (although we surely could have wrested important colonialproperties from several European powers, for we had the strength to do so),and we were satisfied to protect the Americas from European colonizationrather than attempt colonizing Latin America ourselves If this is a record ofcolonialism and imperialism, as some are now loudly arguing, it is certainlyone of the most ineffective records in history and is by far the greatestfailure of all when the colonies we actually obtained are compared with theresources potentially available to obtain them On such a measure, which

half-is the correct one for labeling America either imperial or not, Portugal andBelgium and Italy far outdo the United States, to say nothing of Britain,France, and Germany

There’s further apparent support for the notion of an imperial UnitedStates since our leaders have toyed with the idea throughout our history.For example, John Adams, our second president, predicted that the thirteenUnited States would one day “form the greatest empire in the world.”11Ourcontext, finding ourselves in a world of imperial powers – in John Adams’searly nineteenth century, for example, including not just the European impe-rial powers but also China – dictated that America would continually askitself whether or not it should copy them and seek an imperial destiny ButAmerica never acted for more than brief and largely insignificant periods as

if it wanted to become an imperial power Yet the continuing background ofdiscussion about imperialism in our country causes considerable confusionfor us today, because as we take an ever more prominent role on the worldstage both supporters and detractors label our engagement imperial, while

it surely is not, and not intended to be