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On Friday, in Strasbourg, President Obama said:

I know that there have been honest disagreements over policy, but we also know that there’s something more that has crept into our relationship.

In America, there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America’s shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what’s bad.

Ali Frick, who, like Obama, has a foreign sounding name and obviously hates America, notes with a sneer that Sean Hannity chose to highlight only the second paragraph of this before declaring that “the liberal tradition of ‘blame America first,’ well, that’s still alive.”  Nice try, Ali.  But Hannity is right: Obama may have blamed Europe second, but he blamed America first, didn’t he?  What’s the problem?

Also worth noting: Mike Huckabee fulsomely agreed with Hannity, and everyone knows that he’s the friendly, cuddly version of right-wing nutcasery.  Since Huckabee didn’t object, that must mean Hannity was being fair and balanced, as usual.

(But seriously: Sean Hannity is still obsessing over Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright?  Jeebus. Can’t he come up with some slightly fresher canard to hurl into the insane-o-sphere five nights a week?  Like maybe Obama is a golem or something?  He’s not going to keep this up for eight years, is he?)

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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