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Edited on Tue Nov-07-06 09:43 AM by garthranzz
Not this election, not in Congress, because there is no balance of power now.
But ask any great chess player, any great athlete or coach, and they'll tell you - they need strong competition to bring out the best in them. And, much as I hate to lose, we all need to lose occasionally. It's a truism, but we learn more from our mistakes than our victories.
But, and here's the caveat, I want honest conservatives, honest Republicans. I want real policy debate. I don't want even Democrats I respect to have unchecked power. Kerry's botched joke serves as a paradigm: I can think of no one better qualified to be president, more sensitive to the demands and responsibilities. But he has flaws, like all of us. I would want him to have a "loyal opposition," people who will tell him, for instance, "John, if you're going to tell a joke, read it. Or get someone else there to make up for any gaffe - like Robin Williams."
Because of the parallels, I keep thinking of the days of Watergate. If not for honest Republicans, conservatives with a conscience, Nixon would not have resigned. But Barry Goldwater, Lowell Weicker, Howard Baker, etc. put country and principle ahead of party. They risked their careers. (Any one remember JFK's Profiles in Courage, and the story of the Senator who saved Andrew Johnson from impeachment?)
If we want to not only rid ourselves of the evil of vilification, but to restore the dignity of dialogue, we must reassure the honest Republicans and conservatives with conscience that, after the festering wound has been cleansed, after we as a country have purged the poison of Bush and his puppeteers, we will not perform unnecessary surgery. Rather, we will welcome the debate, confident that our principles can prevail, honestly, on the playing field of ideas.
We are in the midst of our own civil war here. The principles of the Democratic Party will win. But in victory we should look to a Republican (who, if alive today would surely be an Illinois (Massachusetts) Democrat) for the process and philosophy. And thus I bring some of the words of Lincoln, when victory, not yet achieved, was all but assured:
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. ... With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
It is almost a year since I and my family returned to New Orleans. Katrina's damage became, ironically but justly, Bush's signature. It has been almost a year and Bush's signature, like the scrawl of a juvenile delinquent over a sacred document - the Constitution - which must be removed with care, and slowly, lest the document itself be damaged - Bush's signature, though a trace of the vandalism will always remain, is almost removed.
And now, DU, if you haven't voted yet, if not now, when?
Victory, not for vengeance, but for virtue.
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