What is American identity?

Going back a bit to July 4th, there was a thoughful reflection by national columnist David Broder, "Is this nation losing its identity?" (SanDiego.com, July 4, 2008). It's a matter, he says, of education and loss of values. Like the European Union and its amnesiac constitution, we might add. Concludes Broder:

I have not worried about the fundamental commitment of the American people since 1974. In that year, they were confronted with the stunning evidence that their president had conducted a criminal conspiracy out of the Oval Office. In response, the American people reminded Richard Nixon, the man they had just recently overwhelmingly re-elected to a second term, that in this country, no one, not even the president, is above the law. And they required him to yield his office.

That is not the sign of a nation that has lost its sense of values or forgotten the principles on which this system rests.

Watching the Kwame Kilpatrick sharade unfold here in Detroit, along with this year's presidential election, I wonder.