To protect our children's privacy and to not link them to their opinionated dad I don't mention them much on this blog. However, I received special permission for this post.Our son is a graduate student working in the Midwest as a teaching/research assistant for the History department of a university. He is pursuing his goal of becoming a college history professor. His major area of interest is Abraham Lincoln and the emancipation of slavery by Lincoln. This last weekend he flew home to Oregon to speak at the convention of the Oregon College Republicans being held at Sun River near Bend. He was asked to give the preliminary introduction to a speech by Don Malarkey one of the real "Band of Brothers" portrayed in the HBO mini series about World War II of the same name. His Introduction was as follows:
Greetings my fellow College Republicans,
Many of you might remember me as the former Chairman of the Willamette College Republicans. Currently I’m in my first year working towards a graduate degree, hoping to eventually become a professor in history. Even though my area of focus is in the past, I can’t help but be an active observer of today. Yet with my understanding of today, I’m also an observer of the past.
Let me begin by describing the opposition faced by a past wartime president.
Coming into office he was criticized for not having any foreign policy experience.
The eastern establishment despised his plain spokeness, colloquial manner, and backwoods accent.
His intelligence was mocked, described as a ‘first rate second rate.’
Opponents referred to him as a primate, calling him the ‘original orangutan.’
He was described as a fanatic, blood thirsty and despotic.
He was described as a tyrant running roughshod over civil liberties, trampling constitutional protections in his conduct of an illegal war.
His political opponents resented the fact that in his political speeches the President invoked his own faith in a supreme creator of the Universe.
During the war, the original self-interest justification for the war was modified so that the new aims were to set other men free; a move irksome to more than a few.
Political cartoons showed the President with his foot on the Constitution being consulted by the devil.
Also during the war, the president wrote a consoling letter to a bereaved mother of the conflict. The mother, opposed to the President and his cause, in tern spoke out against the President.
During the President’s reelection campaign, in the middle of the war, a former member of the army ran against the president, nominated by a party advocating a cut and run platform.
The opposition the President faced was not just from the opposing party. He received criticism from within his own party, as they criticized him for not supporting the party ideology rigidly enough.
With exception to a small loyal base of the population who maintained their faith in the President, observers on all sides of the political spectrum expressed their disillusion and lack of faith in the president.
Indeed, the first part of his last year in office was his darkest, his popularity (while not scientifically calculated like today) was at its lowest. His prospect for reelection was heavily doubtful. Yet Union victories changed all that. We in America like a winner. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta, and eventual destruction of the Confederacy turned public opinion around on the President.
His assassination both shocked and silenced his critics. His legacy now belongs to the ages. His accomplishments in protecting the United States and spreading human freedom enshrine him in the hearts of nearly all Americans. His likeness is printed on our currency, adorns monuments around the Capital, and etched on our mountains.
I am of course talking about Abraham Lincoln. Yet in a general sense, my description of the opposition to Lincoln is exactly the same as those of our current president.
Of course, it’s not my intention here to place President Bush on the same pedestal as Lincoln. It would be a cruel exercise for anyone to be measured up with him. However, it must be known the criticisms and unpopularity directed towards President Bush today are not new. Our greatest President faced these same kinds of criticisms during his war time experience.
Yet, let me make one last comparison with the Civil War and the war on terrorism, and that is the change in nature of the war. The original justification for the war in Iraq was of course the acquisition by Saddam Hussein of WMDs. These justifications were of course made in good faith. Yet in retrospect the questions over the actual existence of new WMD’s, a judgment originally of consensus by all sides of the political spectrum, remain an open question.
However, the war in Iraq was not just about WMD’s. It was also about removing an unstable dictator of the region, and changing its nature. The war on Terrorism is not merely a punitive action toward the perpetrators of 9/11, if indeed it is about that at all, rather it is about attacking the root cause of terrorism—the Middle East’s culture of despotism. By removing an unstable dictator and sewing the seeds of liberalized democracy, we can put greater pressure on the region for change. By effecting this change not only do we restore the natural rights of people abroad, but in ensuring for them a politically satisfying life, we remove the passions and depravity which has allowed sinister leaders to turn their followers against the West. Thus, freedom for the Iraqis and beyond is not mere altruism, but within our own self interest.
In a certain sense, this is much like the reasoning for the Civil War’s turn in aims. In order to save the Union and preserve the liberties established by the American founding, Lincoln found it necessary to expand freedom to the enslaved as a wartime necessity.
In his message to Congress on December 1862 Lincoln writes:
“We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we know how to save it. We—even we here—hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”
Of course, one of our speakers to follow knows all to well the need to expand freedom abroad, to protect our own homeland. Don Malarkey fought against the fascist Nazi regime in Europe, bringing freedom to the Western half of Germany—the American and British occupied half, and stabilized the western half of Europe. Of course I will let Vance (Vance Day Chairman of the Oregon Republican Party) give you the full introduction for this real life member of the “Band of Brothers"
Needles to say his mother and I are very proud of him.
