The Arizona Daily Star's editorial cartoonist annoys the crap out of me sometimes. Unless today's effort is intended to be satire, he apparently doesn't recognize the difference between the Gettysburg Address (honoring the dead from America's Civil War) and Bush's September 11 speech (drumming up support for the Iraq war). The Gettysburg Address was anything but political.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Contrast Lincoln's words with W's.
We face an enemy determined to bring death and suffering into our homes. America did not ask for this war, and every American wishes it were over. So do I. But the war is not over - and it will not be over until either we or the extremists emerge victorious.
First sentence: death and suffering, check. Second sentence: little outright lie; America (more accurately, the American administration) very much asked for this war, and in fact wanted it so badly that it perpetrated and perpetuated a series of lies designed to make the average sound-bite citizen believe that Iraq was intimately involved in the September 11 attacks. Note to self: try to find camera footage of Dick "there absolutely was a connection" Cheney's temples threatening to explode when W stated Saddam was not involved. Third sentence: war will never be over, check. Interestingly, his closing paragraph echoed Lincoln's:
Our Nation has endured trials - and we face a difficult road ahead. Winning this war will require the determined efforts of a unified country. So we must put aside our differences, and work together to meet the test that history has given us. We will defeat our enemies ... we will protect our people ... and we will lead the 21st century into a shining age of human liberty.
Sounds lovely, although it's difficult for me not to take the cynical view that "putting aside our differences" is code for "sit down and shaddup."
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