I can not for the life of me remember what the quote is from, but it is the punchline to a scene where someone is actually being a huge jerk or terrible to someone and pretending to be a patriotic American doing their duty. The jerk walks off and one guy says, “Man, can you believe that guy? He’s terrible.”
Naive character responds, “Yeah, but what an American.”
Joke being that you’d have to be stupid to believe the jerk was motivated by loyalty or patriotism to the U.S. when he was obviously just being a jerk.
What is this from? It’s driving me nuts and my google-fu is not working for me.
The context is, Cliff saunters up to a guy, calls him “Beagle Breath” — “you’d better not be talking to me, pal” — “If you don’t like the way I talk, maybe there’s something you’d like to do about it.” “I’d be glad to. Let’s go outside.”
“You got it,” replies Cliff; “I’ll pay my check, and I’ll be right behind you.”
The guy who’s ready to fight steps outside and promptly removes his shirt (“ooh, nice upper-body development”). Cliff eventually walks over to the bar’s front door likewise, and then decides to — instead exit through the restaurant upstairs, and head for home. So, y’know, cue the exchange at that point.