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Does anyone here want to survive?
Washington Times ^ | 1-16-07 | Wes Pruden

Posted on 01/17/2007 11:56:49 AM PST by 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: antiwar; bonelesswonder; bush; congress; democrats; iraq; islam; religionofpieces; victory; waronterror; wespruden; winstonchurchill; wot
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To: JZelle

My cousin Vinnie made good speeches too. Then, there is this gym manager I know, who came in to one class at the gym earlier this week, and made a fiery, there is no other word for it, speech.


61 posted on 01/17/2007 2:59:13 PM PST by Revolting cat! (We all need someone we can bleed on...)
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To: colorado tanker
I agree. Public support is driven by the msm, as it was during the Vietnam War. Despite the truth, members of Congress and talking heads are able to say that Vietnam was a disaster that the military lost. Few care to know the truth.

The same is happening now. All stops are out with the msm calling the Iraq war lost and they are working hard on Afghanistan. If the msm was truthful and on the American side this war might well be over.

I was niave enough to think that the internet would make a difference this time. It has but not to the extent that I had hoped. I have discovered that many citizens still get their world view from katie couric, the view and the nyt. They are also not true Americans, only interested in what the government will give them

62 posted on 01/17/2007 3:02:51 PM PST by Eagles6 (Dig deeper, more ammo.)
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To: Alberta's Child

While I agree with much of what you say in #57, it doesn't address the questions in my post.


63 posted on 01/17/2007 3:05:00 PM PST by Eagles6 (Dig deeper, more ammo.)
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To: Jim Noble
"It's a fool's errand."

That may well turn out to be true. As a friend who was in the initial invasion and is now back in Iraq for tour #2

"We can civilize them or destroy them. The second option is always on the table".

As an aside, he has been in the sunni triangle for the past year and says that the present policy is working.

64 posted on 01/17/2007 3:10:24 PM PST by Eagles6 (Dig deeper, more ammo.)
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To: FortWorthPatriot

Yeh, my second thought was that it might be related to the Latin gene, as in genesis - the root, the beginning.

So to call Churchill "sui generis" or an "original, unique" person would make perfect sense.

The writer should have just named Churchill "unique" in plain English. It would have conveyed what the man was and would have been sufficient and understandable.

Slipping into altar boy Latin to appear sophisticated is the trick of a common, cheap sycophant.

Churchill stood on his own, as a man of courage and pointed conviction. He doesn't need cheap word tricks to appear larger than he already is.


65 posted on 01/17/2007 3:12:01 PM PST by sergeantdave (Consider that nearly half the people you pass on the street meet Lenin's definition of useful idiot)
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To: Eagles6
Not long after we invaded Iraq I was at a soccer game. In the same park an anti-war march was organizing. It was the same people saying the same old crap as during Vietnam, only they have gray hair now. Watching the MSM and left spin and lie to try to make this a re-run of Vietnam has been like watching a slow motion train wreck.
66 posted on 01/17/2007 3:16:21 PM PST by colorado tanker
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To: colorado tanker

I thought Fox News might be a step in the right direction. Unfortunately they have gone from fair and balanced to what cnn was 10 yrs ago, left of center. There still is a glimmer there, they are the only ones to cover Oil for Food, but I am afraid there will not be a maistream broadcast or cable news service that is truthful, conservative and American. I am just baffled that there is not a group of real Americans with the financial backing who could accomplish this.


67 posted on 01/17/2007 3:35:59 PM PST by Eagles6 (Dig deeper, more ammo.)
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To: Eagles6

If CBS had a lick of sense they'd rip off the Fox News model, fire Katie, hire Brit and make money hand over fist. But they'll die a slow death before they'll do it.


68 posted on 01/17/2007 3:41:54 PM PST by colorado tanker
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To: sergeantdave
The term sui generis has connotations beyond the English word "unique" -- the former implies that there aren't even any other similar things that could meaningfully be placed into the same category.

The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.

69 posted on 01/17/2007 3:51:20 PM PST by steve-b (It's hard to be religious when certain people don't get struck by lightning.)
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To: Eagles6
I think one of the tragedies of our time is the media and people who don't think past what is said. I am afraid the media has replaced the orators of the past. I have read that WWII had four of the greatest orators of our times. Roosevelt, Hitler, Churchill and De Gaul. I would love to read actual media response to those four. Vietnam was a perfect example of defeat thru the media, you are correct. So many of those 60s protesters are now politicians and "reporters". It makes it easy to pick up the hype from those days and transpose it to today. No real thought process..just bring out a flag people used to rally around. But why not bring out the talking points of a war we won?

I can't really blame the media or the internet at the end of the day, though. We have become so soft that we don't believe we can be destroyed by anyone. I think that is a pretty comforting, but idealistic view.
70 posted on 01/17/2007 4:36:40 PM PST by berdie
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To: Rummyfan

Bingo....Condi let a golden opportunity get away. She could've body slammed her AND made the most salient point of all.


71 posted on 01/17/2007 4:36:52 PM PST by chiller (Old Media is not yet dead. Turn them off and they will die. For the sake of sanity.)
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To: steve-b

"The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug."

I see you're a reader of Mark Twain, my favorite writer. H.L. Mencken and Twain are "sui generis."


72 posted on 01/17/2007 4:46:46 PM PST by sergeantdave (Consider that nearly half the people you pass on the street meet Lenin's definition of useful idiot)
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To: CDHart
I think Bush is a pretty good speechmaker when he gets fired up.

I disagree. "Bring the evil doers to justice" and "Islam is a religion of peace" is about as wishy washy as you can get.

73 posted on 01/17/2007 5:05:32 PM PST by IDontLikeToPayTaxes
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To: Eagles6

"We can civilize them or destroy them. The second option is always on the table".

Although destruction is my preferred first option, I support President Bush, and the whole of western civilization's choice to attempt option two first, several times, over as many years as needed, before resorting to the "second option".

This war is going to last several decades. We did not initiate it, but we are the people who will end it.
One way or another...


74 posted on 01/17/2007 5:39:30 PM PST by sarasmom ( War is not the most vile of the evils humanity commits . There is always apathy...)
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To: GeorgefromGeorgia

I have a 2 reichs mark coin from 1939 in my coin collection. On the front is Hindenburg, not uncle addie, on the reverse is the imperial eagle and swastica. But on the the edge of the coin it says something like "Public good goes before self-interest." I've always wondered if maybe the speeches we see today are somewhat edited or whatnot, all I seem to recall are him foaming at the mouth and ranting against this and that, aren't there any of him sitting around calmly discussing everyday, mundande stuff? At university they said he was very influential and mesmerizing but a sort of gutteral speaking voice and all that.


75 posted on 01/17/2007 5:43:00 PM PST by Freedom4US (u)
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To: sergeantdave
Someone help me out please.

Dude, don't be so helpless! Drag 'sui generis' into the Google toolbar and the third entry is this:

sui generis \soo-eye-JEN-ur-us; soo-ee-\, adjective: Being the only example of its kind; constituting a class of its own; unique.

This man, in fact, was sui generis, a true original. -- Ruth Lord, Henry F. du Pont and Winterthur

They're a special case, a category of their own, sui generis. -- Eric Kraft, Leaving Small's Hotel

In the degree of their alienation from their society and of their impact on it, the Russian intelligentsia of the nineteenth century were a phenomenon almost sui generis. -- Aileen M. Kelly, Toward Another Shore

William Randolph Hearst did not speak often of his father. He preferred to think of himself as sui generis and self-created, which in many ways he was. -- David Nasaw, The Chief

Sui generis is from Latin, literally meaning "of its own kind": sui, "of its own" + generis, genitive form of genus, "kind."

76 posted on 01/17/2007 6:03:49 PM PST by SandwicheGuy (*The butter acts as a lubricant and speeds up the CPU*)
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To: sarasmom

I hope so. If the media were on our side... Remember the Kosovo War? Clinton lied about why we went in, there was no national interest, we bombed civilian targets and aided al-queda. Not a peep from the msm.


77 posted on 01/17/2007 6:29:51 PM PST by Eagles6 (Dig deeper, more ammo.)
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To: SandwicheGuy

SandwichGuy, we're not being helpless; we're solicting responses from the Freeper community.

We already went thru the root explanations of "sui generis" ( see previous posts) and you've added to the knowledge base.

We already know that the use of the in context Latin phrase is extraneous and unnecessary, but, of course, that's my opinion.

It's already been established that sui generis means unique.

The question then is why not use the word "unique" instead of sui generis? Hmmmm?

My determination is that some former Catholic altar boy wanted to puff himself up and confuse the matter with irrelevant Latin. That's okay, though, as we traveled about learning of various meanings and words.

So, dasvedanya, Komrad. :-)


78 posted on 01/17/2007 6:53:13 PM PST by sergeantdave (Consider that nearly half the people you pass on the street meet Lenin's definition of useful idiot)
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To: Eagles6
Not a peep from the msm when incompetant terrorists blew a VW over USAFE HQ at Ramstein AB, since the bomb did not explode, just the detonator.198x something.LOL!
It seems our msm has a decades long ingrained tradition of studiously ignoring "terrorism".
Perhaps if several hundreds more of the msm's talking heads get physically chopped or blown off, they might eventually be convinced a problem exists.
79 posted on 01/17/2007 6:53:52 PM PST by sarasmom ( War is not the most vile of the evils humanity commits . There is always apathy...)
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To: sageb1

I was teaching social studies in rural MO when the Ayotola Khomeni had his revolution. It was great fun. I even bought a Khomeni dartboard and we threw darts at the ayotola. But you had to spell Khomeni corrrectly to get a turn.


80 posted on 01/17/2007 9:02:15 PM PST by ClaireSolt (Have you have gotten mixed up in a mish-masher?)
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