Frank Rich is one of my favorite editorialists.  He has a fascinating article in The New Yorker.  I’ve clipped out the concluding paragraph to whet your appetite, but the full article can be read here.  Rich writes:

“Lost in all our declinist panic is the fact that the election of an African-American president is in itself an instance of American exceptionalism—an unexpected triumph for a country that has struggled for its entire history with the stain of slavery. “Only in America is my story even possible,” Obama is understandably fond of saying, knowing full well that as recently as the year of his birth, 1961, he would not have been welcome in Mayberry, let alone the White House. That his unlikely rise has somehow been twisted into a synonym for America’s supposed collapse over the past four years may be the most disturbing and intractable evidence of our decline of all.”

Rich makes the interesting point that all the men mourning the loss of American greatness are middle aged white men.  I remember a lot of the same winging back when more and more women and minorities began joining SFWA.

There is also a fascinating tidbit in this article.  The term “American Exceptionalism” was first used by Joseph Stalin when referring to America, and trust me it wasn’t meant as a compliment.

I’m the daughter of a southerner.  I know all the code, and here it all the time in reference to the President.  This is going to be a long, nasty campaign and I dread it.