Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Memo to Ben Franklin

Ben, thanks for your insight. You wrote that "[t]hey who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

The PRESIDENT today echoed your sentiment, when he said that "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

2 comments:

drmagoo said...

I noticed that.

Carlos said...

Thanks for posting this, Peter.

This was the political equivalent of a mortal lock take-down of the despicably anti-American infection that was the Bush regime. The healing has begun. And Barack's use of the American idea as a metaphor for our national renewal was magnificent. Ken Burns, the film maker famous for the Civil War series, said that this is the only country on Earth that was founded on words, sustained by their most "dangerous progeny: ideas."

Today President Obama, the son of an African immigrant, reminded the nation what it means to be an American. Beyond the words and ideas, the power of images has left us an indelible timeless imprint.