In an NPR interview, Stephen Colbert said his new book, “America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t,” is based on the notion within right-wing punditry that “our greatest days are ahead of us, and we have the greatest history in the history of history, but this instant right now is completely screwed up, and we’ve got to save America from disaster.”

That made me smile. Pundits, as Colbert humorously points out, are so schizophrenic.

I sometimes jokingly ask my right-wing friends why they hate America. They will talk about America being the greatest nation on earth, ever. And in the same breath they will denigrate the government as broken and useless, lament the country’s morality as worse than Sodom, criticize 47% of their fellow Americans as lazy and irresponsible, describe all politicians as egotistical incompetents, and gripe about pretty much everything else–the economy, our schools, the courts, unions, our foreign policy, the “War on Religion,” and you name it.

They insist we are the greatest nation on earth. But they dislike pretty much everything about us. And so I ask them why they seem to detest our country so much. And, of course, they quickly assert that, no, they LOVE America.

Are we a great nation…or not? Can we have it both ways? We’re certainly very powerful, but are we exemplary, considering all these things we denounce about ourselves? We’ll say, “We’re still better than everyone else.” But…are we?

Just asking.

(The Colbert interview, by the way, is quite interesting, at least if you’re a Colbert watcher. He does the interview out of character, and talks about what he’s trying to accomplish with his character.)