No, Putz. It Really Is About Us.

MATTHEW KAMINSKI: Don’t expect global Obamania to last. “One hates to spoil a good party, but here’s a bet that’s far safer these days than a U.S. Treasury bill: Even with Obama at the White House, they won’t really like us any more than before. It’s not because America’s not a special country, a City upon a Hill, from the Pilgrims to Obama, the Blagojevich couple and other American horrors notwithstanding. It’s because it is. And as ever, our earnest assertion of our superior ontological uniqueness–not to mention its reality in and of itself–is exactly what always grated on the unfriendlies grouped together under the banner of anti-Americanism. . . . The departure of George Bush will change the mood music in America’s relations with the world, but–here’s the heartbreaker for our romantics–it won’t change how most people see America. Because, for ‘anti’ masses, it’s not really about us; it’s about them.”

First of all, what Putz sees as "Obamania" is not so much delight at his assuming the Presidency -- although there is much of that -- as unmitigated glee that Bush is vacating the office. (I'm pretty sure even a President-Elect McCain would have decent approval numbers at this point.) It's not a surprise that Putz, ever the Bush-humper, misses the distinction.

Second, after eight years of epic fail, it boggles the mind that wingnuts could see Americans' "earnest assertion of our superior ontological uniqueness" as a good thing. The sooner we strip ourselves of this fantasy, the better off we'll be. If the Bush term has taught us anything, it's that we're not really unique: we torture, we practice particularly barbaric forms of capital punishment, we blur the line between church and state, and so forth. Indeed, you're "better off being a gay male penguin in China than a gay male human in Arkansas."

Now, if Obama taking office doesn't "change how most people see America," it will not be his fault. It'll be our fault for not giving the world a reason to think we're better than the last eight years would suggest.

That said, President-Elect Obama, even when asserting America's supremacy, at least has the decency to acknowledge her myriad faults and he's been extremely reluctant to drape himself in the American flag -- an innately conservative form of American exceptionalism. (A decision which has not been without consequence.)

It's that trait of Obama's which will ultimately be to our benefit. If Putz has a problem with this, well, fuck 'em.