Well, there are others out there imminently more qualified to dissect the President’s address of last night and the Democratic Party’s response. My own thoughts are these—I perceive politicians of all persuasions to be concerned much more with their own self-interests and the interests of those who paid their way. They continually strike me as petulant brats, concerned more about winning the school popularity contest that doing a job.

HOWEVER.

There seems to be a deeper level of childishness among those left of center, which absolutely makes it impossible for them even to pretend to act like adults. From the smirking Nancy Pelosi, to the somnambulant Ted Kennedy, to the smug Tom Daschle—in watching the reactions to the address and in hearing their vapid pronouncements of the past weeks, there is nothing that even remotely suggests they and their party are anything other than gimlet-eyed opportunists and disrespectful churls. To paraphrase the President, people of America—the enemy is not George Bush – your enemy is a party whose ideology is predicated on exploiting anger and divisiveness; who fan the fires of distrust and dissatisfaction; who promise everything, but who deliver nothing.

It is possible for people of good faith to disagree. The foundation of this nation depends upon the give and take of public discourse in order to arrive at a mutually agreeable resolution. Reflexive disagreement, however, is not discourse. Beware of those who fabricate false crises, whose tactics to gain victory are to turn rich against poor, rural against urban, class against class, race against race. They are not your friends. They are our downfall.

The challenges America faces are much too serious to allow ourselves to be governed by men and women who seem to have never grown past passing notes in class, or who cannot stand for rightness and truth if it means they won’t get asked to the big dance. It’s past time to put away the papier mache heads and drums and whistles, and act like somebody.

As for the speech itself, a few things that stood out to me--

Our war against terror is a contest of will in which perseverance is power. In the ruins of two towers, at the western wall of the Pentagon, on a field in Pennsylvania, this nation made a pledge, and we renew that pledge tonight: Whatever the duration of this struggle, and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men -- free people will set the course of history. […]

As James Lileks noted this morning, the idea of free people setting the course of history is novel. Which I suppose is why the thought alarms so many.

This threat is new; America's duty is familiar. Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world. In each case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit. In each case, the ambitions of Hitlerism, militarism, and communism were defeated by the will of free peoples, by the strength of great alliances, and by the might of the United States of America. […]

Words which will make the eyes of idiots roll upward in dismay? “duty,”—so very passé; “defeated,”—ooh, that implies a false reliance on competition, which as everyone knows, is bad for the self-esteem of the losing side; “might,”—there you go, throwing your weight around again, being a cowboy, risking losing the support of our 'friends' (who incidentally exist in their present democratic form today because of the efforts of vast numbers of Americans. Many of whom still reside in Europe. Under row upon row of tombstones.

Tonight I have a message for the men and women who will keep the peace, members of the American Armed Forces: Many of you are assembling in or near the Middle East, and some crucial hours may lay ahead. In those hours, the success of our cause will depend on you. Your training has prepared you. Your honor will guide you. You believe in America, and America believes in you.

Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a President can make. The technologies of war have changed; the risks and suffering of war have not. For the brave Americans who bear the risk, no victory is free from sorrow. This nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost and we dread the days of mourning that always come.

We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means -- sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military -- and we will prevail. […]

Which reminds me of the quote from John Stuart Mill—

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself”

Many challenges, abroad and at home, have arrived in a single season. In two years, America has gone from a sense of invulnerability to an awareness of peril; from bitter division in small matters to calm unity in great causes. And we go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country.

Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity.

We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do not know -- we do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.
May He guide us now. And may God continue to bless the United States of America.

Amen.
posted by Terry at 10:25:00 AM