Quote Originally Posted by 1OldGI View Post
This "national swagger", the ideas and principles that made this country great all these years, now seem to have been relegated to punch lines. Pardon me if I just don't get the joke.

Great article on the subject in the Wall Street Journal today: Shelby Steele: Obama and the Burden of Exceptionalism - WSJ.com
4 words: 'No child Left Behind'
And to be honest, I don't think even Bush is to blame. He was just the expression of the mindset at the time.
Americans started their decline, educational wise, when 'feelings' started to become more important than results, everyone needed to be a winner, and science nerds became dorks.