No, I can't really imagine it happening in America either, particularly not at the national level. But the role Greece has in Europe is not quite like the role America has in the world.

A good way of thinking about the power structure might be to equate Greece with a state (say, Maine) and the Brussels government with Washington. Now say Maine decided it wanted to introduce lots of public services - brand new schools, public healthcare, free higher education, stuff like that, and borrowed money to do so, and it got to borrow money cheaply because it was part of the US.

And then, ten years later, Maine was suddenly like "I totally can't pay all this back, sorry. I guess I'll just declare myself bankrupt. It worked for Argentina..." In that case, I could envisage Washington stepping in and obliging Maine to sort out its finances. Especially once all the big banks Maine owed money to started lobbying. And however much the people of Maine complained about having all their public financing cut, I doubt the state would have much leverage.

It's not the same, of course, as Greece. Greece's spending, though prolific, was in line with European norms (Free universal education and healthcare etc. are pretty much considered a basic human right in Europe). Greece is an independent country, not a state. But. It did benefit from being in the Euro, then mess up its finances and jeopardize that very same currency union.

None of this, of course, was the fault of your average Greek person, hence the unfairness of it all. And the irony, of course, that all this happened in the country that invented democracy.