Obama, The Cold War and American Exceptionalism

Pejman Yousefzadeh returns to Liz Cheney's case against Obama's Cold War revisionism:

Of course, no one thinks that Barack Obama is not a patriot, but it is not patriotism that is at issue here. Rather, the issue is the power of rhetoric and the degree to which the President–ironically, well-known for being an excellent rhetorician–is not using the power of rhetoric to advance American values and ideals, or to convince the rest of the international community of America’s indispensable and exceptional status amongst nations.

I think this goes back to the point David Calleo was making (and the case that Doug Bandow from Cato makes here) that it's no longer in America's strategic interests to convince the world we're "exceptional" and "indispensable." It made sense during the Cold War, when we had to keep nations in our orbit. But is it really in America's interest to continue underwriting global security, when there is no longer a threat to world security even remotely on par with Soviet Communism and even as our own balance sheet sags under the enormous weight of debt?

Relatedly, RCP contributor Cathy Young takes to the virtual pages of the New Republic to defend Obama's speech in Moscow from Liz Cheney.

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