QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:51 A.M. ET:  Richard Holbrooke, who died Monday, was one of those outsized diplomats, both physically and intellectually, who made a name for himself even though his dream of being secretary of state was regularly denied.  The great Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins commented in The Wall Street Journal:

He came into his own amid the stirrings of the New Frontier, when American power sat astride the world. In the preface of his Bosnian chronicles, he would recall that time: "Today, public service has lost much of the aura it had when John F. Kennedy asked what we could do for our country. To hear that phrase before it became a cliché was electrifying, and it led many in my generation to enter public service. For me, it was the Foreign Service which I joined right after graduating from college. Less than a year later I found myself in Saigon."

American patriotism and American liberalism were still tethered together as Holbrooke made his way. There may have been hubris in that outlook. Our country would be bloodied in distant places, it would learn that the world wouldn't always bend to our will. But the lodestar remained that essential belief that American power could be a force for the good in the world beyond our shores.

COMMENT:  America still is largely a force for good in the world, but our own elites (see our first posting today) disparage that idea, and teach their skepticism to the young.  At the top of those elites is one Barack Obama, who can't bring himelf to embrace American exceptionalism.  After all, how would that play in the faculty lounge? 

Holbrooke was a remarkable guy, and would, in better times, be the fascinating subject of a movie.  Don't buy your ticket just yet.  Hollywood is still busy glorifying Valerie Plame. 

December 15, 2010