Hard-wired into our national self-image is the concept of American exceptionalism, the notion that our country stands out for all the ages as the best hope for humanity, despite its original sin of slavery.
Yet as a lifelong resident of New Jersey, the crossroads of the American Revolution, I have had to reconcile this idealized view with my decades of first-hand reporting on the systemic and endemic political corruption in my state, one of the original 13 colonies.
