During a speech Tuesday night to make his case for Syrian involvement, President Barack Obama invoked what he termed as American “exceptionalism” and leadership while stating the US can’t police the world.

In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote an editorial in The New York Times in which he described Obama’s use of the term as “dangerous.”

In his column for The New York Times, Putin pointed to the process with the United Nations, arguing that it was put into place to prevent the UN from collapsing the way the League of Nations, the precursor to the UN, did.

“No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage,” Putin wrote. “This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.”

Ironically enough, Putin may have managed to do something that little else has since the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007: Unite both Democrats and Republicans on something.

“Putin’s NYT op-ed is an insult to the intelligence of every American,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) tweeted. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was even more direct.

“I almost wanted to vomit,” Menendez said. “I worry when someone who came up through the KGB tells us what is in our national interests, and what is not. It really raises the question of how serious the Russian proposal is.”

Putin’s comments may be the international equivalent of a neighbor criticizing how someone has arranged the furniture in her living room, but many people have uttered some variation of the phrase “we can’t police the world” for years.

One veteran sounded off in an e-mail reported on BusinessInsider.com. The veteran was not identified.

“This country has a fairly recent history of sticking our noses where it doesn't belong,” the veteran wrote. “Since Vietnam, America has used other nations’ transgressions as a reason to go in and set up shop for our government’s own reasons. This sort of behavior needs to end. We are not a world police.”

An unidentified Air Force veteran also wrote in to respond to what appears to be the American government ignoring the lessons of past American military involvement in other nations’ affairs.

“What we do not need is another war, and we certainly do not need any further involvement in a civil war where our objective isn’t clear, and our allies aren’t really our allies,” the veteran wrote.

In response to the idea of America having a moral obligation to get involved when chemical weapons are used, one Marine disagreed with the concept.

“The US has stood by idly while many countries have massacred themselves in a civil war. This should not be any different,” the unidentified Marine wrote.

“The method of their war should not make any difference, killing is killing. As long as the conflict stays within their borders, we do not have any business interfering.”

Hearing criticism of American involvement from Putin, who is solidly in Syria’s corner and has been for years, may be a hard pill to swallow for politician and so-called patriot alike, but the criticism itself is valid.

A country that can’t even agree on common-sense gun control legislation after a horrific school shooting in Newtown, Conn., in December without each side insulting the other has no business calling itself “exceptional” or a model of democracy, especially with various reports indicating American influence is waning. Such proclamations of “exceptionalism” smack of arrogance and hubris.

Working together with the international community, the US can do great things. Working alone, the US risks eroding its world standing by its own hands, a mistake that isn’t exclusive to either political party.