It seems like ever since the United States climbed out of the Cradle of Liberty and learned how to crawl, every generation or so American boots land somewhere on foreign soil and give the world a little reminder of what American-style awesomeness is all about.  The halls of Montezuma.  The shores of Tripoli.  Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill.  Charles Lindbergh.  Normandy and Iwo Jima.  Neil Armstrong.  And last night, those boots had blades of glory on the bottom and were on the feet of one Evan Lysacek.

And this time around, the duty-free shipment of exported American kickass was delivered to defending Olympic champ Evgeni Plushenko (who people seem to think looks like a Soviet version of the Pres)

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Lysacek walked up to the Russian bear and spit in his eye.  In the biggest moment of his career, he delivered his greatest performance in a moment that will go down not just in the annals of Olympic lore, but probably will end up changing the world, like when Rocky beat Ivan Drago.  The Russians have dominated the men’s platform, winning the last five golds in a row.  And make no mistake, Plushenko had every advantage last night.  He had the lead.  The pedigree.  The experience.  And of course, the dreaded Quad.  But Evan was no more intimidated by the Russian than JFK was during the Cuban Missle Crisis.  He skated clean.  He landed all his jumps perfectly.  His footwork was inspired.  Meanwhile, Plushenko omitted a double toe loop at the beginning of his program.  His last full minute included zero jumps, just him posing and dancing like some Eurotrash trying to score in a nightclub.  Ultimately the champ didn’t have enough and the judges had no choice but to give the gold to the American.  Anything less would’ve been a 1972 Men’s Basketball-like travesty.

So it was quite a night for Evan Lysacek, the man who, as we learned last night, couldn’t beat his sister in football, basketball or baseball.  So he asked his mother to sew him a superhero costume, got into figure skating, and did nothing less than make his mark on human history.  And show the world what being an American is all about.  God bless you, Evan, and God bless America.