An American in Washington

The American Spectator ^ | June 24, 2008 | Jeffrey Lord

[Uncle Ralph]

Tim Russert was an American.

I'm not using the term in its patriotic sense, although he certainly was not just a patriot but an unabashed one at that.

No, Tim Russert was an American in that very particular fashion that makes Americans the most distinctive breed of humans on the planet. He was an American in precisely the cultural sense that causes European elites -- and all too frequently our own -- to grind their teeth and look down their noses with such haughty disdain at the one population on earth composed of the entire world's rejects, refugees and descendants of same.

What is an American?

As it happens, I have a friend who has spent a great deal of his professional life studying the subject and made himself fabulously successful in doing so. If you own or have ever seen the Chrysler PT Cruiser, then you should know the design of what became one of the most successful cars in automotive history was the result of the work of Dr. Clotaire Rapaille. A Frenchman who was first introduced to Americans as a child when American soldiers rescued his family and his countrymen from the Nazis, Rapaille was so taken with the idea of America that he vowed he would someday become one himself, which he has now done. He has spent decades developing the startling notion that every human being acquires a "silent system of Codes" growing up in a particular culture. These "Culture Codes" are in fact what make the French French, the English English, the Germans German and so on, country by country, around the world. They are what makes an American so very distinctively American.

[Uncle Ralph]

"Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best and you may succeed: he may well win the race that runs by himself." -- Benjamin Franklin

[Dudoight]

I like what this guy has to say. Well done!