Liz Cheney: 'We are not only better than all of you-we're better than everyone who has ever existed'

[kpete]

Glenn Greenwald
Friday June 12, 2009 09:13 EDT
Tribalistic self-absorption

....................

UPDATE II: Here is what Liz Cheney -- who, like Jonah Goldberg, undoubtedly opposes affirmative action because it unfairly allows people to advance for reasons other than merit (such as family connections) -- thinks that Obama should be saying to the world (h/t A.L. via email):

***" We've now seen several different occasions when 's been on the international trips, where he's not willing to say, flat out, 'I believe in American exceptionalism. I believe unequivocally, unapologetically, America is the best nation that ever existed in history, and clearly that exists today.' Instead we've seen him do what we saw him do in the speech in Cairo, which is sort of, 'on one hand this, on the other hand that,' and then attempt to put himself sort of above it all. I think that troubles people."

Just ponder how psychologically disturbed -- how deeply self-absorbed -- is the need to announce to the world, let alone to believe: We are not only the better than all of you - we're better than everyone who has ever existed for all of human history!!" Imagine if you heard someone saying that about themselves; wouldn't you conclude that there was something deeply wrong with such a person? And speaking of inflaming anti-American sentiment, do you think constantly announcing that to the world might do so a bit more than releasing some detainee photos? But -- as is so often true -- Liz Cheney's statement is a perfect summary of the right-wing view of the world: our group is better than everyone else -- not just that exists now but that ever existed -- and it's terribly unfair to us when our superiority is not recognized and announced. That's just pathological.

more:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/12/self_absorption/index.html

[YOY]

1. I wonder how that jives with the State Department's mission statement.

n.t.

[jkshaw]

17. Yoy, it's "jibes" and, no, it doesn't jibe at all with the State

Department's mission statement or, in fact, nothing here or in the rest of the world. Liz Cheney needs help.

[roguevalley]

30. that sow never earned a damned thing in her life that her pa didn't

hand to her, the demented sow.

[YOY]

35. If there is anything worse than a legacy in the business world it's one in the government.

R or D...doesn't matter.

[madaboutharry]

2. This is what the Cheneys believe and she has

been taught this her entire life in the same way a child is taught a particular religion. It is her belief system and she is too brainwashed or too weak to question it.

[Catshrink]

3. Lizard: Go away. Go crawl under a rock, anywhere, just go away.

Your daddy's time is past, your time in the sunshine is over. Elections have consequences, your side lost, get over it. And please, just go away.

[wroberts189]

25. You would think she and Dick should have their own tv show they are on it so much. nt

[Psychic Consortium]

4. Narcissistic, self centered, entitled, ego driven. Distorted view of reality.

These people are insane.

[blm]

19. These people are FASCISTS. This is their actual belief system they worked over 4 decades to push

on the people of this country with every contrived way possible. It will take quite some time to kill off some of their handiwork that has taken root within our government and even spread those roots into a too large portion of our own Democratic party.

Strangle the fascism off at its roots.....

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[GodlessBiker]

6. Most typically, those who are the best have no need to announce it. Equally, ...

those who announce that they are the best, are not.

[Why Syzygy]

7. Hegemony is the goal. War is the method. nt

[Demeter]

8. Liz Will Never Survive Reality When It Checks In for Her

She's a "Bubble Girl".

[blogslut]

9. She learned that from her mother

n/t

[kpete]

11. yep

mrs cheney has ALWAYS terrified me!!!
peace, kp

[Swede]

10. An Ugly American ruining it for all the decent honest Americans.

It's typical for a neocon.

[joeybee12]

12. She's spouting fascism...

...she would have been right at home in nazi Germany.

[GodlessBiker]

14. +1

[montanto]

13. Right on LIz!! You go, girl!

idiot.

[Octafish]

15. Sieg Heil!

Know your BFEE: Eugenics and the NAZIs - The California Connection

[Swamp Rat]

20. !!

Hola amigo... todo bien? :hi:

[Octafish]

38. Der Smirkelgrüber ist den großstest Scheißkopf in dem Vaterland.

Great to read you, Compay! Too long a time no vid.
All here doing A-OK. How are you and yours? Chevere, espero.



Thought of you a LOT in the last 10 days. Very glad to read your comm earlier...

[Swamp Rat]

39. I sent you a very late respose to your email to me.

I haven't checked that email account for a long time. :hi:

Been hanging out with some new friends WAY down south of y'all. ;) Don't know when I will come back to the USA. :D

[emulatorloo]

16. I have no problem with America aspiring to be exceptional. But Liz Cheney just distorts everything

-- she can't stop herself from lying.

[TahitiNut]

18. There is no 'aspire' when one claims immunity from criticism.

This is WHY the right wing CANNOT 'progress' -- and only REGRESS -- since they believe themselves to already BE the best. They are INCAPABLE of learning, growing, or improving.

[bdamomma]

21. she is as sick as her father.

blow your horn up your arse Liz.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

22. She's delusional..............

To paraphrase Liz: "Oh, you didn't say what we wanted you to say, so you obviously hate America®"

To them, Obama refused to be a cheerleader, so ultimately, he is weak and is weakening our national image. There was a recent article in Rolling Stone on Dr. Cornel West who said that this version of America and the American dream is inherently dangerous in that it gives us a national narcissism that ultimately alienates us from the rest of the world.

[Triana]

23. US "idealism" or Tribalistic Narcissism is what I've called it. We can't be that arrogant

...we are a World citizen or we need to be - and that being so, we can't Lord over others with a US-centric superiority complex. To do so is arrogant - and stupid. And furthermore, it may be part of the answer to the question: 'why do they hate us'?

Maybe - just maybe because we're arrogant - and that's hard to see and hard to say but in too many cases, it's been true and still is.

Obama does NOT need to go around the World flaunting that - it's NOT something to flaunt - and he KNOWs it. Obama understands what community is. The US MUST be part of the World community to a certain degree - that means we can't go around flaunting our arrogance and narcissism like that. Certainly we need to protect ourselves, our economy, environment, jobs, our nation - but we can do that without beating the rest of the World over the head with how all goddamned Superior we are.

It's a boundary issue and the US has historically had a problem with that. Pride is OK when it's justified. Some protectionism is absolutely necessary. But when it becomes arrogance - it does more harm than good and eats away at the very things we'd like to be proud of and it eats away at our national security on many levels.

[bvar22]

24. "Exceptionalism" does not only apply to "Countries",...

....but also applies to the Ownership Class in America.
Those who are "better" naturally deserve more privilege, wealth, and power.


God made it that way.
How can anyone not see that?
Inferiors should be glad for the crumbs.

(This is a deeply held belief in most Americans, and surfaces at DU frequently.
You can view it often in "I got mine so fuck the rest of you" posts that appear here daily.)

[wroberts189]

26. So David Ick is/was right .. There ARE shape changing lizard people

..taking over the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke

Reptilian humanoids

In 1999, Icke wrote and published The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World, in which he identified the extraterrestrial prison warders as reptilians from the constellation Draco.<24>They walk erect and appear to be human, living not only on the planets they come from, but also in caverns and tunnels under the earth. They have cross-bred with humans, which has created "hybrids" who are "possessed" by the full-blooded reptilians.<25> The reptiles' hybrid reptilian-human DNA allows them to change from reptilian to human form if they consume human blood. Icke has drawn parallels with the 1980s science-fiction series V, in which the earth is taken over by reptiloid aliens disguised as humans.

According to Icke, the reptilian group includes many prominent people and practically every world leader from Britain's late Queen Mother to George H.W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Harold Wilson, and Tony Blair. These people are either themselves reptilian, or work for the reptiles as what Icke calls slave-like victims of multiple personality disorder: "The Rothschilds, Rockefellers, the British royal family, and the ruling political and economic families of the U.S. and the rest of the world come from these SAME bloodlines. It is not because of snobbery, it is to hold as best they can a genetic structure — the reptilian-mammalian DNA combination which allows them to 'shape-shift'."<4>

-------------------------------


Fancy that ...and here I thought Liz and Dick were just insane.

btw knr

[glitch]

27. As good an explanation for their behavior as any.

Ok maybe not as good but certainly more entertaining than the mundance probable real reason: that they were never loved as children and have been compensating ever since.

[wroberts189]

34. Liz ..as in LIZARD. Thats proof enough for me :) ..of course my scientific credentials are zip. nt

[nichomachus]

28. Don't believe it? Just look.

[wroberts189]

33. Damn ..I KNEW IT... he is definately their leader. The green ones are the meanest. nt

[glitch]

36. !

:spray:

That's a keeper.

[jimshoes]

29. To compare her to Marie Antoinette

would be an injustice to Marie Antoinette. Liz has her lapped and then some.

[dixiegrrrrl]

31. Liz: . Can't understand normal thinking.

[dorkulon]

32. Narcissism as a national ideal

It's so sad.

[EndersDame]

37. We are soo not the best when it comes to Education the Economy and so on

I think this attitude stems back from American's Golden age when we defeated the nazi's and we were making the most advances and we defined cool in terms of movies and music. I really wish that wasnt trashed by Nixon Reagan and the Bushes

[onethatcares]

40. nor infant mortality or health care or

taking care of our own selves.

But we do have a bunch of neat shit we buy from China that makes up for it. Too bad for us.

[chill_wind]

41. Congenital lying- seems to run in the family. Obama on video- "American exceptionalism."

Liz Cheney continued her seemingly unending campaign to flood the American media, and once again, she said something that isn’t true. This time, on CNN last night, she criticized the Obama administration for being “focused on the president’s popularity overseas.” “We’ve now seen several different occasions when he’s been on the international trips, where he’s not willing to say, flat out, ‘I believe in American exceptionalism,’” Cheney complained. But of course, Obama has said this. Last April during a press conference at the NATO summit in Strasbourg, France, Obama was asked if he “subscribe(s)…to the school of American exceptionalism.” Obama replied:

OBAMA: I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. … And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/11/liz-cheney-obama-exceptionalism/