One of the two words that really make me nervous has been bandied about quite a bit lately: “leadership.” The other word that gives me the heebie-jeebies is “exceptional.” In foreign policy both words are used to express essentially the same concept: The United States should always play a lead role in international affairs because our country is in some sense exceptional. The president, as the commander-in-chief of our army, should always clearly state our position on any new development immediately and enforce his will with massive military power if necessary. This is called American leadership, and it is the natural order of things. The rest of the world should just get used to it.

So, what makes the United States exceptional? Why should the mantle of leadership fall on our broad shoulders? Well, we certainly have an exceptionally powerful military, but no one seems to be claiming that might makes right. We also have a good constitution that has lasted us for a long time, but other countries have had strong democracies for a long time, too. It cannot be the type of government either; when the Bush administration had a chance to impose a governmental structure in Iraq it first chose to install a benevolent dictatorship and then opted for a democratic structure that more closely resembled Italy’s than the strong states, bicameral legislature, and relatively weak president that our founders favored.

No, the official answer surely must be that America is God’s favorite country, or maybe second favorite after Israel. That is why so many politicians are so fond of singing “God Bless America,” why they wear flags as lapel pins, and why they put God in the pledge of allegiance and on every coin.

Everyone knows that the United States is a Christian country or, when the Jewish vote is being courted, a Judeo-Christian country. The United States may not be mentioned directly in any book of the bible, but some people have interpreted sections of Revelations or the various prophecies to refer to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. For the people who follow these interpretations the country’s role was assigned by God. For others it just seems that God has given us such a great country that it is only fitting and proper that its inhabitants take on the role of world leader. This is essentially the same argument (“Taking up the white man’s burden”) that was used to justify European imperialism.

* * *When people ask me if I have seen the popular musical The Book of Mormon, I always reply “No, but I read the book.” It was a very strange experience. I found myself pretty much in agreement with Mark Twain’s assessment:

All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the ‘elect’ have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so ‘slow,’ so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone, in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.

The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James’s translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel — half modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern — which was about every sentence or two — he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as ‘exceeding sore,’ ‘and it came to pass,’ etc., and made things satisfactory again. ‘And it came to pass’ was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.

The provenance of this book, the centerpiece of one of the world’s fastest growing religions, is instructive. The angel Moroni allegedly led Joseph Smith, a young farm boy in upstate New York, to a set of “golden plates.” For some reason the sacred engravings on the plates were in “ancient Egyptian,” but Smith, who spoke only English, was able to translate them using a “scrying stone” that he held in his hat. He dictated to his cousin Oliver Crowdery or Smith’s (first) wife Emma, and the scribe wrote it down in English. I am not making this up.

The point is that the written Book of Mormon is actually about America. In it a remnant of the lost tribe of Israel crosses both Africa and the Atlantic to arrive in America a century or two before the birth of Jesus. The Nephites, as they are called, suffer travails there, but at one point the newly risen Jesus appears to them and convinces them to follow His Word. Seriously.

This and subsequent visitations form the basis of the Mormon religion. Mormons believe that Jesus himself singled out America as a special place. A central theme of the book is that Jesus protects America as long as the people are faithful.

* * *So now a Mormon is running for president. If he was running for the school board or for commissioner of roads, his religious beliefs would not bother me. This is different.

I would never vote for anyone who professed that there was something exceptional about America. One of the core principles of Mormonism is that Americans, or at least the believers, are exceptional people. Exceptional people are not held to the same standards as other people. What happens to them is more important than what happens to the unwashed masses in the rest of the world. The Mormons founded their own territory so that they would not have to be subject to the laws of the United States. A lot of blood was shed before they changed their minds so that they could become a state.

All religions ask their adherents to believe in wacky stuff. Not all religions, however, are equally dangerous. The ones that are based on the elevation of a particular group above all others are IMHO the most dangerous. I admit to being bigoted against them. I would never vote for a Mormon for president, and when one of them talks about asserting America’s leadership role, it scares me to death.

Does Mitt Romney really believe in American exceptionalism? I am not sure what he believes in. His core value seems to be that Mitt Romney should be president. Everything else is negotiable. His advisers have probably assured him that the best way to achieve his goal is, without getting too specific, to woo the many people who consider Americans to be superior for one reason or another. And so he criticizes President Obama, who is not a real American anyway, for his failure to assert American leadership. Frankly, I have had enough of American leadership. People and things tend to get blown up when we are leading the way.