Re: Sorry
Her speech, however, was a ringing endorsement of American exceptionalism; the doctrine that the US is inherently different and therefore gets to play by its own rules.
I didn't see that. Condi spoke at the .NEXT Conference, which is an IT conference and so is a discussion about products and technology, not politics. I did see plenty of anti-American sentiment in Simon's article. And certainly calling her "Leezzzeee" is borderline prejudiced, although that may not be understood outside the U.S. Or maybe @hplasm is counting on that as a defense.
Also, from a review of the .NEXT program, none of the speakers at .NEXT mentioned the NSA, or the British equivalent, the GCHQ, who was exposed in 2013 to be vigorously spying on British citizens in a way that makes the NSA look like inexperienced teenagers:
http://mic.com/articles/50333/gchq-the-british-are-spying-on-us-more-than-the-nsa-is
excerpt: "...a slide from a top secret briefing to GCHQ intelligence analysts reveals, they were even encouraged to 'have fun' spying on people and to 'make the most of it.' " Translation: spying for personal gain, while illegal at the U.S. NSA, is encouraged at the U.K. GCHQ.
Was anyone from the UK speaking at .NEXT? Did they criticize the GCHQ? If they did not, wouldn't that be a ringing endorsement of, uh, "British exceptionalism"?