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Yes. I have long loved that play. "We happy few, we band of brothers..."

In fact, those of us on the daily thread USA vs. Clinton (now "America the Right Way") used it as our rallying cry during the Florida recount.

The one thing I most love about President Bush is that he has a sense of history, and his speechwriters echo both history and literature. Not in the daily, bread and butter speeches, of course, but in the really important speeches.

I think that when we are told about Iraq, we are going to hear a St. Crispin's speech.

And here is the most poetic ode to visceral patriotism ever written I think, and reflects my sentiments about our land, our home, and our joy in being a part of an ongoing great experiment in the pursuit the better angels of our nature, and that of all mankind. The moats against evil now are moral ones, not physical ones, but I think Shakespere did not miss that as well. Sappy I know, but it reflects my own personal leap of faith:


This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, 
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
This other Eden, demi-paradise, 
This fortress built by Nature for herself 
Against infection and the hand of war, 
This happy breed of men, this little world, 
This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
Which serves it in the office of a wall 
Or as a moat defensive to a house, 
Against the envy of less happier lands,-- 
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "King Richard II", Act 2 scene 1