condescending, but a kind of Trojan horse: it implied progress and hope—You, young Greece, may be a miserable mess now, but you, too, will grow up one day to be just like us—and so seemed somewhat harmless. But in the process weren’t all foreign countries condemned to failure so that the United States could remain the ideal? These countries would be selected as candidates in need of endless salvation by the United States—and, by extension, me, one of its foreign journalists asking that patronizing question, “What-ever in the devil went wrong here, guys?”
