Americans Are Not Kidding

In The Terry Jones saga shows the strength of anti-Americanism , Janet Dailey — who is, I think, an American living in England — argues that when the “absurdity” of believing that some “wacko fantasist,” by which she means Pastor Jones, could destroy “any prospect of peace between the West and the Islamic world”

became the immediately accepted received wisdom suggests that the world (and not just the Muslim parts of it) must be very eager indeed to find a plausible excuse for casting America as a cartoon country whose heartland is dominated by bigoted know-nothings. Never mind that this is the same America which, only two years ago, was being hailed by ecstatic European liberals for having elected a black president, whose father and stepfather had been Muslims. I remember saying at the time that the victory of Barack Obama would provide only the most fleeting respite from the dominant anti-American mythology which is so essential to European self-regard.

Which is all true, especially that last phrase. But she goes on to explain, in a rather inspiring way, “why Americans are not kidding when they talk about the intentions of the nation’s founding fathers, and why their reverence for and constant appeals to the Constitution are not an excuse for prejudice, but the precise opposite.”