Eloquence-in-Chief
"Let us remember that we are doing so as servants to the same flag, as representatives of the same people, and as stakeholders in a common future, that is the most fitting tribute we can pay and the most lasting monument we can build to that most remarkable of men, Abraham Lincoln."
Barack Obama, February 12, 2009
Well said, Mr. President.
Both of you!
Both of you know that eloquence is no guarantor of Greatness, and its lack, no impediment.
But when it is found in a leader who is Great, the World moves forward.
Barack Obama, need not be 'great' to be a success, but we all should be grateful for his eloquence, his humility and his balance.
I was not a Barack Obama supporter.
I am now.
I looked and I saw and heard...Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Howard Dean, John Edwards...Joe Trippi, David Axelrod, Michael Moore, Matt Taibi...Michelle Obama...I missed the man, was too busy listening to those who have demonized the Clintons and betrayed John Kerry, allowing the maniac to scorch American Earth in order to prevail at a future date.
Then I looked again and saw and heard...Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel, Leon Panetta, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton at State, John Kerry chairing Foreign Relations...and I said, 'wow'.
Another look brought worry, Tom Daschle, Bill Richardson, Caroline Kennedy...but events intervened, they disappeared, and conflict...poof..., was gone. I supported Barack Obama.
Today, when I read those words..I wanted to be a Better American and a Better Matt.
That is eloquence.
But this place is about keeping it real. And so we will.
We are not what our President would have us be. Not 'United', in any meaningful sense of the word, beyond currency, it can be difficult to find ANY commonality in our belief systems, in our values, even in our sense of what America, actually IS.
That moment, awesome...breath-taking...horrible, that we had, in Manhattan rubble, did not last.
Bush knifed it.
The rest of America, kicked it.
The left, denied it.
The worst, endorsed it.
Those who flew the planes are stronger now.
Those who saw, in their despicable acts, a means to separate ends, plot still against us.
We are split in more ways then 'Red' and 'Blue', 'Liberal' and 'Conservative'...on the Left, on the Right...there are numerous competing belief systems, each category stronger than it was, but less in line with its opposite numbers or former allies.
We are a mess.
And a mess we shall remain.
We must find the common ground the President seeks and it is in our founders intentions.
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia...
They had few illusions of commonality of lifestyle.
Those are generated by marketers, not realists. The beauty of our system is what you see in that list.
Diverse. Different. Willing to work together, despite it.
The very FIRST words that are part of something that came to be called 'The United States of America' can be found in the Introduction, by Thomas Paine, in his pamphlet, 'Common Sense' that was the call for not only Revolution, but for an entirely new way of governing, of seeing man's place amongst his fellows, of organizing...
'Perhaps the Sentiments contained in the following Pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general Favour; a long Habit of not thinking a Thing 'wrong', gives it a superficial appearance of being 'right', and raises at first a formidable Outcry in defence of Custom.
But the tumult soon subsides.
Time makes more Converts than reason.'
Of Paine, another American master of Eloquence in the White House, Thomas Jefferson, said;
'It will be your glory, to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any man living, to bring about the greatest of revolutions'
They understood that we, as they, would learn more, and change more, with time...and left in place a system that allows that growth to be reflected in government.
Lincoln saw, at unimaginable cost, that their ideas survived and that their beliefs would spread to more of her citizens, a process that has continued but it is more a continual struggle than 'destination'.
Freedom's enemies do not rest. Equality's enemies do not rest.
We must find the strength to come together, as we did that day...to unite, in the ways we CAN, and to allow others to live as they wish in the ways we MUST.
We cannot pretend. We cannot equivocate. We cannot blow it.
