Justin Webb's America

Obama's extravagant claims

• Justin Webb
• 26 Feb 09, 06:30 PM GMT

Among other issues arising from the president's speech to Congress: he made two extravagant claims.

First, he suggested that there was no greater power in the world than the example of America, and secondly he said America invented the car.

You can make a decent argument for the first of these claims being true. As I say in my book on anti-Americanism, nobody really wants to be Chinese, or British, or Greek, or Saudi, who is not already. Millions are desperate to be American. There is a space in our minds where America can fit.

But the car claim is false and suggests that this White House is as prone as previous White Houses to that American vice of assuming airily that the achievements of the outside world are not worthy of taking seriously, of internalising, in the way humble foreigners internalise American achievements and prowess.

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