Does anyone here want to survive?

Washington Times ^ | 1-16-07 | Wes Pruden

[JZelle]

The rap on George W. Bush is that he can't make a rousing speech like Winston Churchill, and indeed he can't. But who can? Not Hillary, not "the husband of," not John McCain or Rudy Giuliani, or even Barack Obama, worthies all. Churchill marshaled the language and sent it off to World War II. He was sui generis, one of a kind, an orator who played rhetoric like Babe Ruth hit home runs and Brooks Robinson played third base. But Churchill, the electrifier of frightened audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, had an advantage that neither George W. nor the pretenders do. He had an audience wired to be electrified.

[Zeroisanumber]

I'm not interested in a Churchill. I frankly don't give a tinker's damn whether or not a politician can make a pretty stump speech. What I care about is a well thought-out and executed policy, the rest is just icing on the cake.

[The Blitherer]

Talk is cheap.

I understand your point, and I agree that action is more important than talk. But I disagree that "talk is cheap". The ability to project passion and change hearts through words is one of humankind's greatest weapons. At the time Churchill took the office of the Prime Minister, all England had were his words to cling to.

[RightWhale]

Everybody respected Churchill's speaking and writing ability at the time. What was more impressive was how his voice would come over the radio after every German bombing run: "Still here." The English were not cowed with or without Churchill. After Churchill there were thousands more on the bench, every one of them just as good at speaking and even better at writing.

When it gets tough here in America, we will also find great speakers, but since it isn't actually tough like during the dark days of WW II it is hard to bring that level of resolve to mere talk.

[ClaireSolt]

Who gave the Dem response to Churchill's speaches?

[The Blitherer]

Nancy Astor, who conveniently shares a name with a current clueless politician.

[sageb1]

I wrote about this not long ago. Democrats, and even some Republicans now, blame the President for not being able to "get his message to the American people." There are several factors in play, of course. Use the rallying words "crusade" or "islamofascism," and the Muslim organizations are all over his case. Our Saudi "friends" (who have bucked the OPEC desire to decrease oil output and who have no military of their own) get all upset and complain. The liberal media must also then complain about "The Crusades" and those evil Christians. President Bush has been walking a tightrope that no other president has ever had to walk. This is NOT Vietnam. That ethnic enemy did not live and plot among us.

The poster who mentioned that the American people can only ingest sound bites and headlines is correct. It is not President Bush's fault that we have the most ignorant electorate in the history of this country. When does it become the responsibility OF THE PEOPLE to look at a map, read and study history, follow current events closely, to learn and to understand?

I am old enough to remember when our school teachers taught us who our enemies were, rather than that America is bad. I absorbed their patriotism and that of my parents. Our children don't have that. They are fed moral relativism. They learn through supposedly benign multicultural experiences that all people everywhere are good, so the question/answer becomes "if the United States military is killing these "good" people, then America must be wrong, bad, or just doing bad things. This makes them ripe for the indoctrination they will receive in our colleges and universities.

We are reaching critical mass, folks. We have a generation coming up that was taught that everything revolved around them. It's well past time to burst the bubble of self-esteem they live in.

[Democratshavenobrains]

Alot of people DON'T think anything is at stake in the Middle East though. Mostly Democrats but some Republicans.

[himno hero]

i think you hit the nail right on the head. bush is too premature. what is needed is to have the bombs falling, so to speak, to let everyone know that the issue is real. then, once the tail has been lit, even the opposition and the left will know there is a fire that has to be put out.

i hate to think that they "have to have" another 9-11 to make them wake up in order to be a receptive audience..

IMO

[xmission]

That was a good one.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

When I was in political science in college, we watched one of the NAZI propaganda movies with speeches before thousands a Nurenberg, with subtitles. What was interesting was the electrifying speech of Hitler. Here was a man that I was taught to hate my whole life, yet his speech, even in a language that I did not understand, had me enthralled to some degree. I really wanted to know what he was saying. We analyzed what he said, and it was chilling. First, he was introduced as Germany is Hitler, Hitler is Germany. This was alien to good old American individuality. The NAZIs were trying to say that Hitler=Germany. No American would ever convince Americans to believe that a single man embodied the entire nation. Here Germans were subsuming their own will and reason to one obscene, evil man. Hitler's speech went on to touch on German militarism and nationalism. I was reminded of this when I saw the movie "The Producers" which parodied Hitler with a song "Springtime with Hitler in Germany, Winter for Poland and France...."
Thank God for Winston Churchill.

[RightWhale]

Well, just look around. Is anybody bothering to keep a kind of watchful eye on their street, when they park at the mall, if they go to a show? The threat that it could get bad any day isn't doing it. If it gets bad, then we'll go through a period of shock, especially when we pull up to the gas station and find they have no gasoline and we have to continue on foot. Eventually we will pull through I have no doubt, but it could be a very long time.

[kalee]

ping

[Eagles6]

The administration neeeds a point man to get out in the media, in their face everyday. The president HAS articulated very well how Iraq fits in the WOT(I call it the war on islam)but if the msm ignores it and pushes their own enemy agenda then that's all a lot of citizens know. Sad, that even with the internet, so many are so criminally misinformed.

[edsheppa]

Pruden misses the point. Yes, Churchill is the type of man who comes along only rarely. While a Churchill would be very nice, we don't need a Churchill. What we need is an Administration that figures out what is right policy and agressively fights for it, all the time; one that fights not only our enemies abroad but also those at home who arguably cause far greater damage to American interests.

The President simply doesn't get it. When the NYT reveals secret information, their reporters and editors should be called in front of a Grand Jury and, under oath, required to divulge their sources. If they refuse, off to jail with them. The President should be following policies to eliminate the stranglehold the Enemy Media have over the public perception.

[advertising guy]

how 'bout the speech President Bush gave late one night and it was watched at halftime on a soccer overhead 4 screen by all in attendence, after the speech,the game just quit.....there was a 2nd half but what the hell , the president just spoke to the nation and soccer THAT night was unimportant........remember that ???

[M. Dodge Thomas]

Here was a man that I was taught to hate my whole life, yet his speech, even in a language that I did not understand, had me enthralled to some degree...

Yes - astonishing, isn't it? I wonder, though, if his histrionics would have transfered well to television - certainly we have not yet seem the rise of an political orator as effective on television as Hiller's performance on film before a mass live audience.

[RKBA Democrat]

"Does anyone here want to survive?"

Well, I do. But I fear that western society does not. Take a hard look at demographic trends and draw your own conclusions as to whether your granddaughters will be wearing the burqa or not.

[colorado tanker]

I heard the President speak frankly about the islamo-fascist threat once, and after the P.C. brigade cried out he went back to the platitudes he's mainly relied on in his stump GWOT speech.

[Eagles6]

"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be even a worse fate. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish then to live as slaves." ~Winston Churchill in a speech before the British Parliament in 1939

[wildcatf4f3]

our leaders are the worst of the worst generation in American history.