In Senator Obamas patriotism speech one could hardly help but notice its Reaganesque tone, at least at first. Heres what Obama said: "You know, on a spring morning in April of 1775, a simple band of colonists -- farmers, and merchants, and blacksmiths, and printers, men and boys, they left their home and their families in Lexington and Concord to take up arms against the tyranny of an empire."
Rewind to Ronald Reagans tyranny of the "evil empire" and the simple quote "evil is powerless if the good are unafraid"
Obama: And the odds against them were long, and the risks were enormous, And yet they took that chance.
They did so... on behalf of a larger idea: the idea of liberty, the idea of God- given, inalienable rights.
And when the first shot of that fateful day, a shot heard 'round the world, was fired, the American Revolution and America's experiment with democracy began. Those men of Lexington and Concord were among our first patriots.
Rewind to 1964 and Ronald Reagans "A Time for Choosing" speech: He said "should the patriots at Concord bridge have put down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead that fought to stop the advance of the Nazi's did not die in vane. Where then is the road to peace? Its a simple answer after all, you and i must say, there is a price we will not pay there is a point beyond which they must not advance."
Unfotunately for Obama the similarities end here. In the very next sentance he offers some statistics on the Iraq war: "At the beginning of a week when we celebrate the birth of our nation, I think it's fitting to pause for a moment and reflect on the meaning of patriotism, theirs and ours--We do so in part because we're in the midst of war. More than 1.5 million of our finest young men and women have now fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 60,000 have been wounded. Over 4,600 have been laid to rest. The costs of war have been great, and the debate surrounding our mission in Iraq has been fierce."
While all this is true, if he was trying to arouse our sense of patriotism he stumbled badly, unless his real intent was to contrast victories of our past with his perceived failure of Iraq. Taken in this context he may have accomplished exactly what he intended. It seems a bit disingenuous to equate patriotism with a war he does not support.
click here for the full transcript http://www.nytimes.com/
Rewind to Ronald Reagans tyranny of the "evil empire" and the simple quote "evil is powerless if the good are unafraid"
Obama: And the odds against them were long, and the risks were enormous, And yet they took that chance.
They did so... on behalf of a larger idea: the idea of liberty, the idea of God- given, inalienable rights.
And when the first shot of that fateful day, a shot heard 'round the world, was fired, the American Revolution and America's experiment with democracy began. Those men of Lexington and Concord were among our first patriots.
Rewind to 1964 and Ronald Reagans "A Time for Choosing" speech: He said "should the patriots at Concord bridge have put down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead that fought to stop the advance of the Nazi's did not die in vane. Where then is the road to peace? Its a simple answer after all, you and i must say, there is a price we will not pay there is a point beyond which they must not advance."
Unfotunately for Obama the similarities end here. In the very next sentance he offers some statistics on the Iraq war: "At the beginning of a week when we celebrate the birth of our nation, I think it's fitting to pause for a moment and reflect on the meaning of patriotism, theirs and ours--We do so in part because we're in the midst of war. More than 1.5 million of our finest young men and women have now fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 60,000 have been wounded. Over 4,600 have been laid to rest. The costs of war have been great, and the debate surrounding our mission in Iraq has been fierce."
While all this is true, if he was trying to arouse our sense of patriotism he stumbled badly, unless his real intent was to contrast victories of our past with his perceived failure of Iraq. Taken in this context he may have accomplished exactly what he intended. It seems a bit disingenuous to equate patriotism with a war he does not support.
click here for the full transcript http://www.nytimes.com/
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