Posted on 12/01/2006 8:17:53 AM PST by beyond the sea
We're going to need grace. We are going to need a great outbreak of grace to navigate the next difficult months.
America is turning against a war it supported, for the essential reason that no one is able to promise a believable path to a successful outcome, and Americans are a practical people. It is not true that Americans are historical romantics. They are patriots who, once committed, commit on all levels, including emotionally. But they don't wake up in the morning looking for new flags to follow over old cliffs. They want to pay the mortgage, protect their children, and try to be better parents in a jittery time. They are not isolationist. They want to help where they can, and feel called to support the poor and the sick wherever they are. They are also, still, American exceptionalists, meaning they believe the creation of America--the long journey across the sea, the genius cluster that invented the republic, the historic codifying of freedom--was providential, and good news not only for us but the world. "And the glow from that fire can truly light the world."
Much has been strained. We were all concussed by 9/11--we reeled--and came down where we came down. For the administration, extreme events prompted radical thinking. American exceptionalism was yesterday. They would be universalists, their operating style at once dreamy and aggressive: All men want the same thing, and we're giving it to them whether they want it or not. Now the dreamers hope to be saved by men--James Baker, Vernon Jordan--they once dismissed as cynics. And the two truest statements on Iraq are, still, Colin Powell's "You break it, you own it" and Pat Buchanan's "A constitution doesn't make a country, a country makes a constitution." Iraq has a constitution but not a country.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
WSJ / Noonan bump for later.............
Well said!
Well said!
Why do I say that? It is because Webb's THOUGHTS ("I wanted to slug him") were quoted.
Therefore, the President could have said something like, "I know how you feel, but I just wanted to know how your son is doing."
Democrats lie. It is part of their fabric of being.
Yes, and I suspect that most people smart enough to penetrate her persiflage will also be smart enough to reject her premise.
Yes, they do lie. But sometimes they tell the truth.
When I first read the story, I thought George Bush did get snippy, a lapse of his usual graciousness. Having had a friendly inquiry - to an opposing senator, no less - met with a demand to cut and run, I figured the president got impatient, something he's been known to do.
I assumed, of course, that the story was true - something I'm still inclined to think but can't prove. As others have pointed out, a lot depends on tone too, and I have no idea whether the president's was gracious or snippy. It's not unbelievable that George Bush would fire off a snippy line.
If, as is probable, he did, it's not unforgivable, either. As I said, I consider it a lapse of the graciousness that the president has so often shown. We all have our lapses. Knowing the weakness of ourselves and of others, do you know how we should meet those lapses? With grace.
Nice. Wonder if I can find a demo this weekend, and have to imagine it'll be a few months before it hits the PGA Partners Demo program. It's gotta retail for at least $500.00. Probabaly will just go ahead and stick with the Launcher-Comp for another year or 2.
;-)
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