What is with this fetish of Republicans?

Why do they feel the need to exhort "American Exceptionalism" in every breath they draw? Is there some form of underlying guilt because they know they could be working to make this nation more exceptional instead of just their party? Is it the tacit knowledge that they know we aren't acting exceptionally, so if they keep chanting the mantra like a cult, it will distract citizens from that fact?

SOTU not exceptionalist enough?

If there's one thing President Obama did go on about a bit about in the State of the Union, it was American exceptionalism -- as the National Journal's Ron Fournier noted at some length. Two who didn't entirely notice were Speaker John Boehner and Kathleen Parker. From Parker-Spitzer:

BOEHNER: Well, they -- they've refused to talk about America exceptionalism. We are different than the rest of the world. Why? Because Americans have -- the country was built on an idea that ordinary people could decide what their government looked like and ordinary people could elect their own leaders.
And 235 years ago that was a pretty novel idea. And so we are different. Why is our economy still 20 times the size of China's? Because Americans have had their freedom to succeed, the freedom to fail. We've got more innovators, more entrepreneurs, and that is exceptional but you can't get the left to talk about it. They don't -- they reject that notion.
PARKER: Why do you think that is?
BOEHNER: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if they're afraid of it, whether they don't believe it. I don't know.

It should also be noted that Obama called Boehner Speaker of "The Greatest Nation on Earth."

Politico