Name One policy That the Republicans Have Passed That Shows How "Exceptional" America Is

[MrScorpio]

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 8:56pm. Guest Commentary
HUGH CONRAD FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Rick Santorum is attempting to buttress his far-right credentials and improve upon his two percent ranking among Republican presidential hopefuls (SRLC by Wilson Research Strategiess) for 2012. The former Pennsylvania senator, who lost to current Sen. Robert Casey by 18 points in 2006, made the wingnuts happy recently with his claim that President Obama does not believe that America is an exceptional country.

This is a common right-wing meme, contending that Democrats do not brag enough about how powerful and wonderful a nation we are.

Santorum was referring to self-reliance in these comments, hammering programs like Medicare that have helped millions of people receive good health care in their later years. However, history shows that Democrats -- not the other party -- have consistently displayed the greatness of America over the past century.

While Republicans pontificate about how exceptional America is, Democrats have actually made the country exceptional.

This is not just a matter of semantics. Exceptional means "making a country better" than others, "improving" the country, and we have been doing that throughout the history of the republic.

As a means of historical contrast, name one policy that the Republicans have passed that shows how exceptional America is.

Zero.

For example, take the issue of how Democrats led the quest for the U.S. to reach the moon. Republicans complained about how American public education was the reason that the Soviets were able to release Sputnik, the first satellite in 1957, during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration. Despite that challenge, President John F. Kennedy boldly predicted after he took office in 1961 that America would be the first country to land on the moon. He asked Americans to pull together in that quest to surpass that quest.

We were successful.

The Rest: http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12803

[mrcheerful]

1. Well if you count being stupid as Exceptional then everything the GOP has done has been

Exceptional.

[Cresent City Kid]

2. Maybe Teddy Roosevelt

But they ran him out of the party. Remember when America and the government weren't seen as two separate things at odds with each other? When the government, and some private sector contractors plus some citizens who chose to be test pilots teamed up to go to the moon, WE went to the moon.

The republican idea of American exceptionalism is when corporations' profits are exeptional which is acheived by keeping costs (our wages) low.