Many liberal-minded people expressed, often sorrowfully, their deep disillusion with America during the dark Bush years. The nation they had grown up looking up to, as a beacon of hope – a place that, while flawed, still inspired dreams of a better future and produced great movies, soaring buildings, rock ‘n’ roll, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King – had been hopelessly tainted by reckless wars, officially sanctioned torture, coarse chauvinism, and extraordinary political arrogance.