GREEK TO ME

     When asked if he believed in American Exceptionalism, the President said yes, but only in the same way the Greeks believed in "Greek Exceptionalism".  To be fair, this was in 2009, before Greece had slid all the way down to Total Basket Case status.  But still, why Greece?  There is no doubt that the ancient Greeks contributed mightily to art, politics and culture, but does that does mean the modern Greek nation posesses the same unique qualities of liberty, stability and economic vitality that make America exceptional?

     Not really.  For most of its history, what we think of as Greece has either been a fairly typical old-school hegemon that sought to subjugate its neighbors, or has itself struggled under the domination of some other empirical tyrant.  For three hundred years it was a mere outpost of the Ottoman Empire, until was extricated in 1829 with the help northern Europe (which was apparently suffering under its own pre-Obamian delusions of Platonic nostalgia).  But the newly freed Greece did not revive Socratic notions of democracy.  It became a monarchy, with a German as its first King.  It stayed that way until WWII, when (like the rest of Europe) it got overrun by Hitler, and suffered from intercine squabbles with its communist faction until the Marshall Plan and the predecessor of the CIA/Special Forces tipped the scales toward nominal democracy in a civil war that lasted until 1949.  Since then, it's had a military coup or two and finally slipped into the EU, where, completely exhausted, it is about to become an economic ward of Germany.  I'll bet Hitler finds that pretty ironic from whatever special corner of Hell in which he resides.

     I don't mean to pick on the Greeks, just to point out that their history is fairly typical for southern Europe (tyrant or victim, depending on the circumstances) and nothing like the history of the American experiment which makes us exceptional.  I'll credit the President with benign diplomatic motives in his invention of a Greek history that never happened, but has it really helped the Greeks to pretend that their country has been as successful as the US in securing its citizens' rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  Wouldn't it be better for them in the long run to stop blowing sunshine at them, show them our playbook and help them run it?