Heaping glowing coals on another person's head is usually misunderstood and comes to nothing because the other person knows just as well that he is in the right and has also given some thought on his own part to heaping coals.
You cannot tell a poor boy from a small country town on the plains of South Dakota who has had the opportunity to be a teacher, a mayor, a senator, and a vice president, that America is not a nation of promise.