American Exceptionalism Under Assault

[Geee]

American Spectator:

In this election cycle, one noticeable phenomenon is how the Republican presidential candidates are emphasizing our country's founding principles -- liberty and freedom -- more than in any campaign in the modern political era. Each speaks often of the Declaration of Independence. Citing articles of the Constitution is commonplace.

The president's record of evoking such themes stands in stark contrast. In his State of the Union address, for example, our president made only one perfunctory reference to the Constitution and then went on to misquote it.

In his campaign speeches, the president carefully co-opts key Republican themes like reducing debt and deficits, exploiting natural gas, making teachers accountable and reducing regulation. Yet, in these acts of political triangulation, he sees no value in pre-empting Republican rivals on basic American principles imbedded in our founding documents.

An Internet search for examples of Obama advocating for liberty and economic freedom is futile. They don't exist. Odd for man who was once a professor of constitutional law.

So, why is the president so silent while his adversaries are so vocal?

The answer lies in the president's own words. In the 2008 campaign he said he was seeking to "fundamentally transform" America. Indeed he is, and this transformation is directed squarely at American Exceptionalism.

The Declaration of Independence was the original American Social Contract. In it, the detail of King George's "abuses and usurpations" laid the predicate for our Exceptionalism in a simple and provocative formula the world had never experienced: