Glenn Greenwald has a great post that highlights how the Bush Administration, and its Establishment enablers, Democrats, Republicans and the Media, have severely tarnished the idea of American Exceptionalism. Glenn comments on a WaPo piece by its Deputy Opinion Page Editor Jackson Diehl criticizing, in completely unironic tones, the failure of "the rule of law" in Russia:

How can a member of an Editorial Page which has endorsed some of the most grotesque abuses and violations of law within their own country -- and which continues to believe that those responsible should be protected and immunized -- possibly continue to parade around as some sort of crusaders for those principles when it comes to others? Who is the target audience that they think they are successfully fooling with that charade? What mental process allows a person like Jackson Diehl or Fred Hiatt to declare that their own Government is exempt from the rule of law and the most basic international norms yet still believe they are in a position to condemn other governments for insufficient regard for the rule of law and human rights?

Glenn is right of course, but this holds true for the entire Beltway Establishment and beyond, from Fred Hiatt to Cass Sunstein to Nancy Pelosi and yes, to Barack Obama. The abdication of any moral standing by the American Establishment in the past 8 years has been nothing short of shameful. No one in the Establishment has the standing to lecture anyone about anything. All the lawlessness, all the outrages and abuses, all in our name - the Establishment has gone along every step of the way. This is what American Exceptionalism means now. And all done in our names.

Speaking for me only