What He Said

I have a definite love-hate relationship with the columnist David Brooks.  At times he infuriates me with his writing.  Other times I think he is spot on.  This week is, I think, one of his best columns.  It also provides me with good validation regarding what it means to be a professional writier.  I started this blog to share some opinions, provide some commentary, and have a bit of fun.  But I'm not a professional writer.  When I read some of the stuff by Brooks, Peggy Noonan, and others it makes me realize how difficult that job would be.  And how great they are organizing thoughts, keeping a logical flow, and making the reader really feel what they are trying to say.

This week Brooks' column in the New York Times is titled "Why We Love Politics".  It is all about the recently released movie, Lincoln.  I posted about this last week.  But I wasn't close to expressing the texture of the movie, the message, the meaning when compared with his column.

It (Lincoln) shows that you can do more good in politics than in any other sphere. You can end slavery, open opportunity and fight poverty. But you can achieve these things only if you are willing to stain your own character in order to serve others — if you are willing to bamboozle, trim, compromise and be slippery and hypocritical.

I think most people view politics as a rough and tumble, very dirty business.  And it is.  But, it is also an endeavor that can deeply impact people and if the politician can achieve positive results, it must be very rewarding.  Of course, Hollywood and the media has their own spin that has influenced people to take a very cynical view.  To be a politician has become almost a dirty word.  And yet we still pay huge attention at every election to who we elect to represent us at every level...local, state and federal.  And that is because the actions they take can directly impact our lives.

The movie also illustrates another thing: that politics is the best place to develop the highest virtues. Politics involves such a perilous stream of character tests: how low can you stoop to conquer without destroying yourself; when should you be loyal to your team and when should you break from it; how do you wrestle with the temptations of fame — that the people who can practice it and remain intact, like Lincoln, Washington or Churchill, are incredibly impressive.

Brooks describes the evolution of a leader in a brilliant manner...from Gettysburg to the Second Inaugural Address.  From stating a grand vision to doing the incredibly difficult and lonely tasks demanded of leadership.  The movie eloquently shows Lincoln struggling with compromising his own views for the greater good, deciding that the 13th Amendment was so important that the war had to be extended.  It was very powerful and not a fairy tale.  It was real.  And doing that further built the character of our greatest President and led him to write what is generally regarded as one of the best speeches ever written, his Second Inaugural Address.  If you've never read it, here it is.  And for goodness sake, if you haven't seen this brilliant movie, go see it!

Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln 

SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1865

Fellow-Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

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.