Childish

Now, either side thinking they're the good guy doesn't make it so. But until we really start asking ourselves what different peoples from different parts of the world really want and why, we'll always be stuck in our childish "We're Luke Skywalker and they're Darth Vader" nonsense which doesn't seem to really be accomplishing much of anything. - XMASTIME

a la David Brooks:

In a mature nation, President Obama could go on TV and say, “Listen, we’re doing the best we can, but some terrorists are bound to get through.” But this is apparently a country that must be spoken to in childish ways.

We insist on being spoken to as children. You can't say "you might hafta make some tough choices at the end of your loved one's life," cause then we're gonna run around screaming about "death panels." You can't say "boy, Iraq has turned out to be a fucking shitsorm," we hafta hear "things are going great!" We have become the country that insists on it's own exceptionalism simply for existing; we've become a national version of the kid who gets a trophy on the Little League field just for being able to show up in baseball pants. Much like playing PERFECTLY to Bin Laden's "America will fly into a panic" script, it's become rather embarrassing. In other words, we have become The Real Housewives of the United States.