Bush and Lincoln, the Spartans 

Bush and Lincoln, the Spartans

Honestly, my first reaction to the idea that Bush's speech had something in common with Lincoln's Second Inaugural was: you've got to be kidding. (Woodrow Wilson is something else; I may have to come back to that).

As the Civil War drew to a close, Lincoln reminded everyone that slavery was evil, and abolishing it was a noble cause; but in the best-known part of his speech, he strongly urged "malice toward none." It was reconstruction and reconciliation that were most important--as in South Africa recently. To prepare for this thought, Lincoln argued that fault wasn't only to be found on the side of the South; neither the North nor the South could fully grasp, or carry out, God's plan. There was fault on both sides, so forgiveness is logical as well as necessary.

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.


Here's Harold Meyerson.

Matthew Yglesias has posted lots of interesting comments on Tapped. I especially like this one, referring to comments by Condi Rice that agree with the Bush speech:

Freedom is good; the United States is free; we want a balance of power that favors freedom, so we must create a balance of power that favors the United States. That's quite the sleight of hand, and I'd even deem it clever, except the actual policies undertaken in its name don't seem to have actually improved our position in the balance of power or done much to spread the blessings of liberty.


This reminds me of the ancient Spartans: they would always say quite blandly that they would never do anything unjust; even more ambitiously, they could be counted on to defend justice, even far from home. The latter was certainly not true, the former was dubious. Rather than admit to any problems, which might undermine their morale, they simply fell back on asserting that anything they did was just, and anything they failed to do was not required by justice. A slight dusting of your fingers, and you're done.

Yglesias says Bush has said very similar things before, and his phrases have never led to a change in U.S. policy, or even been connected to facts on the ground in any meaningful way. So much for comparisons to Lincoln, Kennedy, and for that matter (I suspect) Wilson.

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