Tuesday, March 10, 2009

National Self-Image II

So we not only invented the automobile, we invented democracy, too:

A veteran politician, Clinton compared the complex European political environment to that of the two-party U.S. system, before adding:

"I have never understood multiparty democracy.

"It is hard enough with two parties to come to any resolution, and I say this very respectfully, because I feel the same way about our own democracy, which has been around a lot longer than European democracy."


Clinton is pretty clearly getting tired; as the article says, she's getting toward the end of a gruelling around-the-world tour. So there may be nothing more to this than the natural slips of weariness. But once again our American self-centeredness (along with the fantasies of grandeur it brings) is showing.