If there weren't such a tendency to declare the US the best at everything, there might be less of a temptation to stick a pin in the balloon of national vanity. Think of it as a slave whispering in the ear of the victorious general that he is still only a mortal as he drives his chariot through Rome during his Triumph. Only, thanks to the internet, the slave is using a megaphone.

We do a lot of things very well. We also get points for trying to do good things, even when our success is less than complete. We often redefine things as "good" when they become US policy, even though they were "bad" (not US policy) last week. Humility is something we don't do well at all.

For an example of rating other nations poorly against ourgloriousselves, and thus inflating the national vanity balloon, please see Tom's link to Jim Treacher's remarks about how inferior the British approach to law enforcement is to ours, here. As you can perhaps find something good about Swedish politics if it didn't have to mean we are somehow inferior, I can perhaps excuse some of the accidental household shootings that result from random access to handguns in this country if it didn't mean making fun of a nation that declines to allow citizens to keep firearms around the house.

You will recall that I have no interest in repealing the Second Amendment. I also can't understand why anyone who makes fun of the people who don't like Bush would make fun of the British, who are our only real allies in Iraq. But that's just me.