All countries rely on myths to project their image but American myths about its greatness and as a light unto other nations are repeated so often that most people have come to believe them. The reality is very different.
Anyone who has watched old American westerns - movies about Cowboys and Indians - will recall the popular phrase uttered by many an Indian, ‘pale face speak with forked tongue.’ Along with several other Indianisms, this one entered into American popular culture to such a degree that it lost its original rhetorical strength.