Is Barack Obama an American?

[Spider Jerusalem]

8. If "not being an American in the way one views the world and follows politics" means being objective

and having some awareness of and sensitivity toward sincere differences of opinion, then American public life could use more people like that, not fewer. And, come on: Anyone with the slightest recollection of the run-up to war in Iraq could hardly deny that the Bush administration, and a lot of the American public, showed quite a great deal of arrogance to the opinions of the governments of our allies France and Germany. And "American exceptionalism"...the idea that the US is somehow unique and destined to be a leading global power...isn't really any different to the way the British thought in the days when the sun never set on the Empire; it's nothing more than the arrogance of power saying "this is clearly the way things are meant to be".