Posted on 07/02/2002 5:48:04 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Got change for a dollar? How about four quarters? George Washington is with us either way, his face a sober constant in our basic daily doings.
America's most familiar countenance is left as tips, plugged into parking meters, seen in all the right and wrong places. But his essence is still elusive. As another Fourth of July flames out, Rediscovering George Washington takes another look at the great man's long-ago life. Born in 1732. Died in 1799. His 67 years were some of the best-spent ever. Now we spend him.
Rediscovering George Washington Grade: A- 8:30 p.m. CST Thursday, PBS (Channel 13) Hosted and written by Richard Brookhiser 90 mins.
The tour guide for this thoughtful 90-minute program is journalist/historian Richard Brookhiser, who takes viewers to many of the places where Washington once stood. Oddly – and this is the only real complaint here – he skips past Washington's heroic Christmas night crossing of the Delaware to Trenton, where his half-starved men helped turn the tide of the Revolutionary War with a resounding rout of the encamped, mercenary Hessians.
Perhaps Mr. Brookhiser feels that this defining exploit already is amply documented. Still, it's like doing a bio of Babe Ruth without touching on his 60 home-run season. Some things just can't be left out, but in Rediscovering George Washington all we get is a brief glimpse of a stilted, crossing-the-Delaware painting.
Play Uncle Barky's patriot game Try your hand at these TV-related patriotic brainteasers
Mr. Brookhiser is more interested in whether young George actually could have thrown a rock across the Rappahannock River. So he enlists a group of strong-armed high school baseball players, two of whom reach the other side with throws approaching 400 feet. Conclusion: Washington very well might have gone the distance, too, even without any 'roids or Wheaties.
The program divides Washington's life into chapters titled "Warrior, Charisma, Politician, Ideas, Manners" and "Constancy." Mr. Brookhiser dubs him "America's first superstar," with an uncanny ability to mold his behavior to fit whatever challenge he undertook.
Washington's level-headed comportment stood him in good stead whether he was commanding an Army or fashioning a presidency that had no previous owner's manual. He easily could have become a dictator, Mr. Brookhiser says, noting that "almost all the strong men in history have betrayed their revolutions."
Instead Washington set an enduring precedent by willingly and humbly giving up the presidency after two terms. The Adams family then moved in.
Another George, the senior Mr. Bush, praises Washington's grace under fire, both from weaponry and political foes.
"The fact that he stood for civility means something," Mr. Bush says. "And it may be old-fashioned, but it's a true value. And I hope that we could somehow return to that."
Mr. Brookhiser closes the program with a visit to the Quander family reunion. They are descendants of slaves that Washington owned throughout his life. In the end, though, he was the only one of nine slaveholding U.S. presidents to free all of them in his last will and testament.
Present-day Quanders bear Washington no enduring animosity. Some see him as a "man of his day." Others say he could have been an even greater statesman without this considerable blemish.
But more than two centuries later, "to hold that against him would make me a bad person," says a Quander whose ideals stand tall.
Mr. Brookhiser accentuates Washington's undeniable positives in a final benediction: "He stayed true to his original high principles. To me that is both inspiring and humbling. We can all remain true to our highest principles. Nothing could be simpler. Nothing could be harder."
And on July Fourth especially, nothing could be finer.
Washington : an abridgement in one volume by Richard Harwell of the seven-volume George Washington by Douglas Southall Freeman
- Richard Barksdale HarwellAvailable through Barnes & Noble, also Amazon.com.
Also recommended, about the author of the seven-volume George Washington:
Douglas Southall Freeman, by David E. Johnson.
Happy Fourth!!
My favorite greenback. From 1896.
"There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy."
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