Proving that the time spent in faculty meetings, where hairsplitting exegesis reigns supreme, had not been wasted, he developed an extraordinary interpretation of what George Washington had really meant when he warned against foreign entanglements. Wilson redefined “foreign” in a way that would surely have astonished the first president. What Washington meant, according to Wilson, was that America must avoid becoming entangled in the purposes of others. But, Wilson argued, nothing that concerns humanity “can be foreign or indifferent to us.”42 Hence America had an unlimited charter to involve
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