How many of us would like to be Henry Louis Mencken? I have a feeling that an interactive poll would show a slam-down majority for that. Mencken was the most capable twentieth-century American intellectual that never put his body into a university – as far as I know. The only other serious contender for such a prize would have to be Eric Hoffer.

As a scholar, Mencken is known for two things: his study of the American language and an early explication of Nietzsche. But that’s not the Mencken we know. What he was also good at was cutting through nonsense in a way that was standard- setting to American letters: instead of yelling “corruption” from below, he dished out cold contempt from on high. What might have made him so powerful as an opinioneer was the rumor that he and he alone was responsible for the unhinging of Woodrow Wilson. I’m sure there are still many back-woods guesses about what the source of his power was.

As far as his influence as a living force was concerned, that ended in the 1930s: he went down with “his” Hoover. By the time Roosevelt was inaugurated, the public went chasing after another great man, but never really found one: there were too many contenders. Roosevelt himself dealt with this by uniting those contenders who were New Deal supporters under one roof – the "brain trust” – and in doing so, lent a certain prestige to socialism. Others have tried to fill Mencken’s shoes themselves from time to time – most notably, William F. Buckley. But there never has been another H.L. Mencken: the crown of the succession seems to be as elusive to attain as the archbishopricy of the Episcopal Church of America.

There are ways, however, to ape him. One of which has dogged the United States ever since Mencken’s American Mercury folded: becoming anti-American.

You can see this. Look at any publication or work that the common estimation judges to be anti- American. Chances are, you’ll either see a Menckenish thrust or the direct influence of Mencken himself. The real love of old H.L for his homeland expressed in his philology – meaning his serious work - always ends up on the “cutting room floor.”

This aping seems to be the source of most domestic anti-Americanism.

For the resident of a foreign country, on the other hand, an anti-American streak or side is both easy to explain and obvious: fear. Republics have long been associated with aggressive wars, and what the United States citizen consider to be universal values looks a lot, in foreign eyes, like an attempt to resurrect and make permanent the Protectorate of Cromwell. There was a Constitution floated about during the early stages of the Protectorate that is similar to the one the United States has now – although, and this should be noted, the Puritan Constitution was much more rigid than America’s, and had no Supreme Court. So it could be characterized as a “two-legged stool” which fell flat.

But the elements of what the Founders would later reveal to the people of America were there – including the division of powers philosophy. The Protector was pitted against Parliament in a way similar to the division between Legislature and Executive in today’s United States. (If you’re interested, Britain’s Legislature was effectively unicameral at that time. The Upper House in Britain was and is the House of Lords, so the application of bicameralism to the Protectorate would have either involved a commoner Protector obliged to politically joust with barons, earls and even Dukes, or else the abolition of the Lords. That stress might have been the immediate reason for the collapse of the Protectorate.)

What this historical development says to a foreigner is that America is just a breakaway colony whose “universalism” is basically a cover for a kind of neo-Puritan political philosophy. To justify this opinion, they would bring up one of the most durable stereotypes that United States residents have had to face: American “mediocrity” in the use of words. Word- mouthing with sloppy syntax, to provide a brief definition.

This tends to be used as snoot, but the fear I identified above has a deeper source: the all- American intuition that the purer of heart a President is, the more tyrannical his government becomes. To check this, if you need to, look at the Presidents held up by your history texts as noble knights on great steeds – and then ask yourself how much D.C. bullied its own citizens during that time. The most obvious example to cite would be Kennedy and Camelot – whose dark side was wiretapping at home and the assassination of an ally (South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem) abroad. The “Camelot administration” also featured the sending of seven G.E. executives to jail over an anti-trust matter and the regular cancellations of programs and even whole stations who were “too critical” of the President. This single example, easily generalized to other noble Presidents, cements in the lesson that the noble knight with his noble steed always, always possesses a noble sword – and the right (in his own pure mind) to use it.

Sadly, this wisdom is what did in Barry Goldwater in 1964. The Democrats’ rumors about “the mad bomber,” capped by that notorious little-girl-with-her-daisy commercial, flew so successfully because it jibed with what the average sophisticated American believes about any Presidential candidate.

The average American has a solution to the above return of the man on horseback: put in a President that has a foppish side. This enables any would-be glory seeker to be restrained from acting out any of their fantasies – something that is vital to preserving American freedom vis- à-vis the government. Foppism in the White House is forgiven easily; a heart that is pure hearkens a return of the snake.

Such a decision rule preserves domestic freedom. But take a moment and look at it through the eyes of an ignorant foreigner.

The other-imposed restraint made possible by selecting Presidents with a “human” side looks to a foreigner like a penchant for putting dangerously irresponsible people into the seat of Commander-in-Chief. The sight of the Clinton impeachment trial would look, to a foreigner, like the American people deciding in 1992 and ’96 to put a reckless boy in charge of the nuclear button. A 1980s Genesis video (the one with the “Spitting Image” puppets) contained a similar observation in an attack on Ronald Reagan.

The snoot you might have heard from foreigners tends to cover this fear. Ignorant they are, misunderstood America might be, tragedy this push- and-tug between American and foreigner might lead to, but that foreign opinion seems set in stone. Perhaps the best way to come to terms with this is a careful reading of Federalist X and applying its wisdom to the international scene, one full of other nations that also desire their independence. It might be a help to see the United States itself as a faction.

I should note, in closing, that this does not imply support for the United Nations. The suggestion above is meant to be for the purpose of self-education and to clear away the mystery of why the United States regularly has to face “foreign entanglements” directed against America itself.