Only in America

Tom Lantos, upon announcing his retirement from congress, offers up this bit of boilerplate: "It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family, and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a member of Congress." Jonathan Zasloff correctly notes that this isn't true: Leon Blum and Brun Kreisky survived the Holocaust and served as Prime Ministers of France and Austria respectively: "This reminds me of Joe Lieberman's self-congratulatory acceptance speech at the 2000 Democratic Convention, where he also said that his story could happen 'only in America.' That's just wrong."

There's something very strange about this particular brand of American exceptionalism that takes genuine, positive things about the United States (many opportunities for Jewish people!) and then falsely transmogrifies them into unique attributes of the United States. It's a strange tick, because it's clearly not really meant to be taken literally. At a minimum, I'm sure Lantos is aware that "Jewish refugee becomes politician" is something that could happen in Israel. And yet convention dictates that if one wants to refer to one's personal story as illustrating some good thing about the United States one must insist that only in America do these good things happen. Would it really kill us to acknowledge that good things happen elsewhere.

Comments

Well, hey, in those other countries, he couldn't have become a three-decade member of _Congress_. The comparisons to Blum and Kreisky aren't entirely fair since those men were residents of their countries before the war - they weren't postwar refugees or DPs. Your example that this could/has happened in Israel is legit, but that is a route only open to Jewish refugees.

It's true that the "only in America" utterance is more pro forma than corresponding to actual truth. But I won't pick nits when a Holocaust survivor or WWII refugee says it, because I think they really mean it. The US was remarkably welcoming after the war (not so much before the war). There's a moral here about our current paroxysms of angst over immigration, which is too obvious to actually spell out.

Posted by Ben | January 2, 2008 6:21 PM

Yes, the Only In America shtick can be annoying and potentially infantilizing.

But Zasloff doesn't "correctly note" anything: Blum had already been Prime Minister before the war, and Kreisky got out just after the Anschluss. Lantos managed to survive the whole war in Hungary and then start over from scratch in a new country.

Posted by s | January 2, 2008 6:44 PM

I think the point Lantos was trying to make is that he came to the great immigrant nation of the United States and became who he became. Blum and Kreisky were both born in the countries in which their public life took root. Sadly many have forgotten in this country that all our ancestors were immigrants.

Posted by Steve | January 2, 2008 6:49 PM

Er, um, I guess Lantos forgot about the part where shiploads of desperate Jewish refugees were turned away from the US following the Holocaust.

America truly is a wonderful country, but to say that Holocaust survivors could only have achieved his accomplishments in the US is naive at best.

'Nuff said, I hope and pray he survives his cancer to see another 20 years with his family in this amazing place we're lucky enough to call home.

Posted by kiweagle | January 2, 2008 7:03 PM

Like the one about the two Jews watching the St. Patrick's Day Parade:

"Look, you see that guy? He's the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ireland."

"Very distinguished looking."

"And you know what? He's Jewish."

"Only in America!"

Posted by Mike | January 2, 2008 7:12 PM

Just for list purposes we also have Pierre Mendès-France in, of course, France and Isaac D'Israeli in England, if one considers just Jews. But who cares? One need the inflated ego of a politician in order to take things way out of proportion.

Posted by Koshembos | January 2, 2008 7:29 PM

Even here in Australia, politicians will occasionally (less frequently than in the US) say something like "this is the best country in the world". But only as in "the most wonderful woman in the world, my wife". (This is irony, not exactly in the sense of meaning the opposite of what you say, but more in the sense of casting in an objective form a claim the validity of which you're implicitly acknowledging is at best heavily subjective.) The difference, one gets the impression, is that in the US such remarks are intended to be taken pretty much neat.

Posted by Amit | January 2, 2008 9:08 PM

As a Canadian, this has always driven me nuts. I always viewed it as a symptom of American ignorance about the rest of the world, that politicians could spoon feed that sort of drivel to a public that seems to actually believe it. "Only in America, would this have been possible..." blah blah blah. I'd love to see some charts on social mobility, opportunities etc among western nations.

Posted by Josh | January 2, 2008 9:35 PM

Hillary Clinton said something even more bizarre on the Today show recently. “I couldn’t be sitting here in any other place in the world. I didn’t come from a family of power or money; I came from the middle class.”
Does anyone believe she would be where she is without the Clinton name.

The U.S. is a first world country with an increasingly third world political system - little respect for the rule of law, power invested in political dynasties (Bush, Clinton) or celebrities (Schwarzenegger, Thompson), massive amounts of campaign money and little discussion of ideology.

Posted by XYZ | January 2, 2008 9:44 PM

This reminds me of my favorite joke. It was about the time that Baby Jessica had been rescued from the bottom of a well, some comedian used the news coverage in his stand-up. "I heard on the news that the rescue of Baby Jessica was the kind of thing that makes you proud to be American. Yeah, right. Because the Swedes would have left the little girl in the well."

Posted by joejoejoe | January 2, 2008 9:46 PM

From The Simpsons (the episode where Lisa and other students go to Washington to make patriotic speeches): "When my family arrived in this country four months ago, we spoke no English and had no money in our pockets. Today, we own a nationwide chain of wheel-balancing centers. Where else but in America, or possibly Canada, could our family find such opportunity?"

Posted by Jeet Heer | January 2, 2008 10:02 PM

Best countered by listing things like the largest prison population in the world, how many kids don't eat regularly, etc., etc.

Or as Elwood Blues once said, "It's not lies, it's just...bullshit."

Besides, claiming that America is the only place where you can become a corrupt asshole politician no matter where you're from is not really something I'd care to utter publicly.

Personally I hope his cancer claims him by Tuesday before lunch.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 3, 2008 2:06 AM

Yeah, "only in America" is a cliche. If you're gonna quote Don King, go with "double shot power".

Posted by beowulf | January 3, 2008 2:16 AM

All things considered, the Bruno Kreisky story IS much more interesting. Lantos's accomplishments are remarkable, but not singular. Andy Grove survived the Holocaust, came to America, and founded one of the largest technology companies in the world, George Soros survived the Holocaust, came to America, and became a gazillionaire philanthropist promoting democracy in Eastern Europe, and so on. It's extremely difficult to a) have survived and b) be emotionally and intellectually intact enough to have a successful second career, but many people have done it in the U.S., and also in the U.K.

For Bruno Kreisky to have become a national leader in one of the most anti-Semitic countries in Europe, the model for what Germany might have become if no one was monitoring it for guilt after 1945, and which went on to elect Kurt Waldheim, is bizarre. I understand he was at extreme odds with his own Jewish identity, though.

Posted by Brittain33 | January 3, 2008 9:36 AM

I sound like I'm criticizing Lantos for something he didn't say (that he was the only one), but really the point is about Kreisky's singularness.

Posted by Brittain33 | January 3, 2008 9:38 AM

Er, um, I guess Lantos forgot about the part where shiploads of desperate Jewish refugees were turned away from the US following the Holocaust.

When did that happen? Desperate refugees were turned away from the US before and during the Holocaust, and away from Palestine afterward, but the US was pretty good about accepting DPs after most of the other Jews in Europe had been killed.

Posted by Brittain33 | January 3, 2008 9:40 AM

I thought Blum was PM before the holocaust - during the Czechoslovakian crisis.

Posted by Njorl | January 3, 2008 10:01 AM

Nevermind, clicked on the link.

Posted by Njorl | January 3, 2008 10:03 AM

I think he's quoting Yogi Berra from when they made a Jew the Mayor of Dublin- and I think Yogi was kidding on the square.

Posted by Bruce Purcell | January 3, 2008 5:22 PM

I'll accept Tom Lantos's claim if he's willing to admit that "only in America" could school shootings become commonplace without any gun law reform, "only in America" could billions be wasted on "The War on Drugs" year after year with no improvement or change in policy, and "only in America" could the president veto measures to help poor children get medical treatment and stay in office.

Posted by David S. | January 3, 2008 7:26 PM