Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s excellent new show Global Public Square, is debating Sean Hannity today on Hannity’s America. The topic appears to be Hannity’s insistence that “America is the greatest country on earth” and as far as I can tell he wants everybody, regardless of nationality, to agree.
I’m a huge fan of Zakaria’s broad, intelligent view of the role of the USA in our complex world and not a fan of Hannity’s sometimes spooky form of “shout down conservatism” where, unlike rounded folks like Zakaria, Hannity simply refuses to discuss or even acknowledge our many USA defects, choosing instead to personally malign many who he sees as standing in the way of his “my country right or wrong and my country is never wrong anyway” naivete.
Hannity correctly notes a lot of the things that make the USA a great country, but his blindness to our defects, especially our massive and irresponsible spending on unneeded military projects and our newfound enthusiasm for mixing fundamental religion and politics does a disservice to the wisdom of the founders who clearly understood how critical it was to think and debate the issues of governance and society far more broadly than most modern conservatives (or liberals) tend to do..
