Jeanne D'Arc at Body and Soul:

It is very hard to talk about the promise of America without falling into self-congratulation and delusions, or worse, into a sense of entitlement. The language has been sullied, maybe beyond cleansing, by too many speeches in which our "values" are a nicely wrapped package we can hand someone else, or even force on someone who doesn't want them. America as an inheritence from a rich daddy, which allows you to take whatever you want, screw up repeatedly, and never pay for your mistakes, and still believe that your the best piece of work God ever created.

Faced with that, it makes perfect sense to look inside the package and point out that there isn't much under the pretty wrapping, that justice and free speech and equality and all those other nice things are more talked about then practiced. And I won't disagree with anybody who presses me to look at the emptiness inside the box. But I still think the box itself is a framework for something wonderful.

Which is why, unlike Timothy Noah, I think John Kerry's new campaign slogan -- "Let America be America again." -- is marvelous.

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