President Obama

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeSeveral commentators noted President Obama's admonition that "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

President Obama is making a determined and laudable effort to find common ground with his political adversaries, but I was relieved to hear him draw at least that distinction between himself the previous Administration.

On a personal note, my son is a dual citizen of the U.S. and France, and he lives and goes to college in France. I'm glad that he has reason to be proud of his American heritage, and even to reexamine earlier, more bitter lessons he's had about America.

For this and many other reasons, I've been acutely aware of how the U.S. is viewed abroad. What many on the intellectual left (and even the right) don't realize about Americans is how easily we can be led to believe that everything we have achieved, we have achieved alone, and that the rest of the world is either grateful for the bounty that we bestow upon them (our economic and political way of life is the envy of all!), or else insane, ungrateful and ultimately, evil and of no account.

Populists, mostly on the right, have encouraged this kind of jingoism because it justifies our disregard for international treaties which impinge on the profits of Corporate America (think Kyoto Treaty) or which cast doubt on the legitimacy of some of our military adventures.

It will be useful to remind the public of how much we have depended on foreign powers for much of our history, and of how much we have been enriched by great individuals who came to the United States because of what we stand for... which is much more than unfettered freedom to make money.

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