Interesting...
(><) Perhaps three of the greatest prose stylists, ever, were not known primarily as writers.
King David wrote a powerful and profound prayer of the ages ("The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want...")
I doubt that he was a simple shepherd boy who could sling shot with a slingshot.
Abraham Lincoln ("Fourscore and seven years ago... whether a nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure") was an intensely ambitious corporate lawyer who suffered from long bouts of depression ("the Black Dawg," he called it.)
His wife was a Southerner and a strange piece of work.
"Father Abraham" called forth "the mythic chords of memory" to divine, first, that the United States should remain whole, and later, harking back to the 1776 Declaration of Independence, which declared that "All men are created equal... endowed by their Creator..." while the Constitution of 1789 provided for the continuation of slavery until date certain --- an issue which later tore the nation asunder --- in the bloodiest and perhaps near-genocidal war in history to that time.
Margaret Mitchell in Gone With The Wind wasn't just beating her gums.
Lincoln fired generals until he found a failed drunk --- U. S. Grant --- who chose William Tecumseh Sherman to march from "Atlanta to the sea" burning, plundering and pillaging --- a vision that still haunts many sons of the Old South, as much as other visions haunt other nations --- whose denizens we today regard as hate-filled primitive folks.
Evocative music was created as brother killed brother ("We'll rally 'round the flag boys, we'll
ralley 'round the flag boys, singing the battle cry of freedom...")
Had Lincoln knwon the ulitimate cost of the war, would he have pursued it? Was he right to do so?
I think so.
Suppose the U.S. was composed of 48 states, constantly at each other's throat, much like those that drove Europe's great and ghastly history for millenia. Would we have been that "light unto the nations" evoked by John Winthrop in 1625?
I doubt it.
An interesting case is made that the states would have re-united to form a more perfect union.
I doubt that, too.
Winston Churchill --- a great hero to most Neo-Cons --- showed that rhetoric could be as important as Spitfires spitting fire.
We former speech writers like that idea.
He had been a war correspondent and strategic planner that led to some of England's great defeats.
He thought he would go down in history as a failure.
Watch the incredibly beautiful DVD The Gathering Storm.
He wrote: "If this island kingdom shall survive for a thousand years, this shall be known as their finest hour" --- which harked back to Shakespeare's "St. Crispin's Day" passage which called forth another generation to fight for "a cause greater than themselve's" --- which was Sen.John McCain's best line as he toured New Hampshire on the "Straight Talk Express" --- referred to as Bull-sh** One" by the jaded press corps that gobbled up his on-the-record non-stop chatter. McCain won an astonishing victory over the man would later be known as GWBush #43.
President George W. Bush (#43) evoked the rationale for the war in Iraq in his quite remarkable 2005 Innaugural Address, which, I think, will rank among the finest ever.
We shall we what astonishes whom in a matter of hours, as Americans who chose to vote excercise a franchise denied to so many others for so long.
Ben
King David wrote a powerful and profound prayer of the ages ("The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want...")
I doubt that he was a simple shepherd boy who could sling shot with a slingshot.
Abraham Lincoln ("Fourscore and seven years ago... whether a nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure") was an intensely ambitious corporate lawyer who suffered from long bouts of depression ("the Black Dawg," he called it.)
His wife was a Southerner and a strange piece of work.
"Father Abraham" called forth "the mythic chords of memory" to divine, first, that the United States should remain whole, and later, harking back to the 1776 Declaration of Independence, which declared that "All men are created equal... endowed by their Creator..." while the Constitution of 1789 provided for the continuation of slavery until date certain --- an issue which later tore the nation asunder --- in the bloodiest and perhaps near-genocidal war in history to that time.
Margaret Mitchell in Gone With The Wind wasn't just beating her gums.
Lincoln fired generals until he found a failed drunk --- U. S. Grant --- who chose William Tecumseh Sherman to march from "Atlanta to the sea" burning, plundering and pillaging --- a vision that still haunts many sons of the Old South, as much as other visions haunt other nations --- whose denizens we today regard as hate-filled primitive folks.
Evocative music was created as brother killed brother ("We'll rally 'round the flag boys, we'll
ralley 'round the flag boys, singing the battle cry of freedom...")
Had Lincoln knwon the ulitimate cost of the war, would he have pursued it? Was he right to do so?
I think so.
Suppose the U.S. was composed of 48 states, constantly at each other's throat, much like those that drove Europe's great and ghastly history for millenia. Would we have been that "light unto the nations" evoked by John Winthrop in 1625?
I doubt it.
An interesting case is made that the states would have re-united to form a more perfect union.
I doubt that, too.
Winston Churchill --- a great hero to most Neo-Cons --- showed that rhetoric could be as important as Spitfires spitting fire.
We former speech writers like that idea.
He had been a war correspondent and strategic planner that led to some of England's great defeats.
He thought he would go down in history as a failure.
Watch the incredibly beautiful DVD The Gathering Storm.
He wrote: "If this island kingdom shall survive for a thousand years, this shall be known as their finest hour" --- which harked back to Shakespeare's "St. Crispin's Day" passage which called forth another generation to fight for "a cause greater than themselve's" --- which was Sen.John McCain's best line as he toured New Hampshire on the "Straight Talk Express" --- referred to as Bull-sh** One" by the jaded press corps that gobbled up his on-the-record non-stop chatter. McCain won an astonishing victory over the man would later be known as GWBush #43.
President George W. Bush (#43) evoked the rationale for the war in Iraq in his quite remarkable 2005 Innaugural Address, which, I think, will rank among the finest ever.
We shall we what astonishes whom in a matter of hours, as Americans who chose to vote excercise a franchise denied to so many others for so long.
Ben
posted by Ben Wattenberg at 9:14 PM
2 Comments:
President George W. Bush (#43) evoked the rationale for the war in Iraq in his quite remarkable 2005 Innaugural Address,...
Again? Question: Isn't it traditional to give the rationale for a war before it starts? Which was back in the Spring of 2003, as I recall. So why did Bush have to "evoke" that rationale again?
In case you haven't noticed: The original "rationale" for the Iraq War -- that Iraq had/was developing WMDs (despite the sanctions?) -- was long ago proven either 1) wrong or 2) a lie, depending on how much credence you give the 'Downing Street Memos'. And I see no reason not to give then a lot of credence.
So actually what Bush, one of the crudest liars and responsibility-evaders in the history of the presidency, did in his second inaugural was attempt to redefine, after the fact, the "rationale" for the War to fit the current circumstances. To make it simple, i.e. so that even you can understand: He had to make up a new, high-falutin sounding "rationale" because the one originally given had been shown to be totally bogus.
It's only because America has too many mushy-thinking simpletons like you that Bush and his gang of co-conspirators are able to keep getting away with this transparent fraud.
Saddam Hussein is not the only one who deserves to be put on trial.
We shall we what astonishes whom in a matter of hours, as Americans who chose to vote excercise a franchise denied to so many others for so long.
Huh? Tip: proofread your posts, or ask someone else to do it, before you publish them on your blog.
Anyway, look up and read the text of Powell's UN presentation from early 2003, in the run-up to the Iraq War -- he never mentions, not once, a lack of democracy as the reason for invading Iraq.
Question: Are you, could you possibly be, serious about the drivel that you write?
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