America the Teenager

As Marbury says, Peggy Noonan’s bizarre column offering advice to David Cameron ahead of his trip to the US makes “America sound like a weepy, insecure girlfriend in constant need of emotional reassurance”. True that:

Advice on your visit? Love America. It not only deserves it, at the moment it needs it. Our morale is low. Do you want to help preserve what has been called the Special Relationship? (Actually, I don’t know: do you?) If you do, then when you speak here, speak of your love for this great nation. We don’t, not in a deep way and not enough. Even our President doesn’t. He tries, but he can’t get it right because it’s all so abstract to him. He associates patriotism with nationalism. But patriotism springs from legitimate love and gratitude, nationalism from shallow aggression and conceit. Obama confuses the two, can’t get them straight in his head, and winds up saying little, badly.