{"id":12422,"date":"2013-09-15T16:43:54","date_gmt":"2013-09-15T15:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=12422"},"modified":"2013-09-15T16:47:39","modified_gmt":"2013-09-15T15:47:39","slug":"the-latest-debate-on-american-exceptionalism-obama-vs-putin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=12422","title":{"rendered":"The latest debate on American exceptionalism: Obama vs Putin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is an notion &#8211; ill-defined, but important in political discourse in the USA &#8211; called <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_exceptionalism\">&#8220;American exceptionalism&#8221;<\/a>. \u00a0The term has recently been used in very different ways by President Barack Obama of the United States and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2013\/09\/10\/remarks-president-address-nation-syria\">his address<\/a> to the American people on the situation in Syria following gas attacks on civilians, Obama stated:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;America is not the world\u2019s policeman.\u00a0 Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong.\u00a0 But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act.\u00a0 That\u2019s what makes America different.\u00a0 That\u2019s what makes us exceptional.\u00a0 With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.\u00a0Thank you.\u00a0 God bless you.\u00a0 And God bless the United States of America.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/09\/12\/opinion\/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html\">his article<\/a> in the &#8220;New York Times&#8221; on the situation in Syria, Putin stated:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States\u2019 policy is \u201cwhat makes America different. It\u2019s what makes us exceptional.\u201d It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord\u2019s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is an notion &#8211; ill-defined, but important in political discourse in the USA &#8211; called &#8220;American exceptionalism&#8221;. \u00a0The term has recently been used in very different ways by President Barack Obama of the United States and President Vladimir Putin of Russia. In his address to the American people on the situation in Syria following [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us-current-affairs","category-world-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12422"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12429,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12422\/revisions\/12429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}