My favorite fictional speech

Recently I caught up with a really old TV drama series—The Newsroom, from 2012. I don’t know how I missed it when it aired, because it has one of the great rousing speeches of TV-dom. In the first episode, a college student asks a star newscaster what he thinks makes America the greatest country in the world. Excerpts from his rant:

“And with a straight face, [you’re saying] that America is so star-spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The U.K. France. Italy. Germany. Spain. Australia ... Belgium! has freedom ... 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of ‘em have freedom …

“Just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know. One of them is: There is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. We're 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, number 4 in labor force, and number 4 in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending—where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies … When you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the FUCK you're talking about! ... Yosemite?"

Weirdly, when I heard this speech, I welled up with what felt like patriotism. Or maybe it was a wash of relief at hearing the unbridled truth, even eight years late. Say it loud! Say it proud! Yeah, we suck bigtime!

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