[PornoDoggy]

First of all, your assertion that public school graduates have no clue about American history is rather lame. I am a graduate of the public school system, and also have me a library card. As such, your "history-lite" lesson about the early-20th-century was hardly necessary (although as enlightening as the hyperbole about the public schools).

I will give you this much ... both Wilson and Roosevelt had a certain messianic regard for themselves. However, each reprented polar opposites - to imply any sort of continuity between the two schools of thought they represented indicates a profound lack of understanding of their world views.

As much as I dislike Bush and everything he stands for, I am not prepared to take the leap off into comparing our actions in Iraq to our actions in the Phillipines (even if there are certain TACTICAL comparisons that can be made).

The schizophrenia of the neocons is that they are employing the realpolitik methods of Roosevelt to achieve a Wilsonian objective (establish a thriving democracy to act as a "light on the hill" for all of the Middle East to follow).

Your description of World War I as a war in which we had no interest is (to be polite) questionable as well. Those were, after all, American ships the Germans were sinking with unrestricted submarine warfare. While it is true that the impending conflict between the U.S. and the Central Powers was not nearly as apparent as the subsequent conflict with the Axis, it was there ... and had we waited too much longer to get involved in the conflict we would have entered it under worse conditions than we did 25 years later.

Suffice it to say that I think the claim that America has been in decline since the turn of the 20th century is bullshit.