Deftly Handled
You’re the President of America. At a NATO summit, a European reporter asks you whether you believe in American exceptionalism. How do you negotiate that fraught question without undermining the cooperation you hope to secure abroad, or else angering the folks back home? I’m sure I couldn’t have managed any better than this. It sure would’ve been easier to be president on a mission abroad before the advent of the television camera. I’d love for some historian to sift through the records of presidential visits, and the visits of envoys in the days before presidential travel, noting all the times words were spoken that never would’ve been said had they been transmitted to an American audience.
Conor, thanks for highlighting this. Pride, power, and humility is a hard mix to pull off.
Clinton said something similar once, at Davos IIRC. Someone asked him about America’s (faults, guilt for something or other, etc.), and he said “There is nothing wrong in America that can’t be fixed with what is right in America.”
Always thought that was well done.
— JA · Apr 7, 10:34 PM · #