Right Wing Nut House

A week before the battle of Bull Run Sullivan Ballou, a Major in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers, wrote home to his wife in Smithfield. The letter, made famous on Ken Burn’s landmark documentary Civil War, should really be read while listening to the haunting Ashokan Farewell that accompanied the reading on the show. Such timeless love and heartfelt patriotism makes this letter so American in form and meaning that it should not only move you to tears but make you proud of your heritage.

Such men as this fought to save the union. And they fight to save us today.

My very dear Sarah:

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights . . . always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again . . .

Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later at the first Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861.

In case you haven’t noticed recently, we are at war.

You are forgiven if it slipped your mind. The Bush Administration, now that it has its funding for the troops through September, will probably go back to its curiously quiescent attitude about informing the American people of the stakes and warning of the consequences of failure in Iraq. It is one of the great mysteries of this conflict, this on again, off again, start and stop effort by the President to remind us of the fact that 150,000 of our fellow citizens are engaged in a vital conflict that as I write this, is deciding much about our future.

The blockheads at the White House have never gotten it. They’ve never understood that their long, unbroken silences on the war have allowed their political opponents to define every aspect of it - why we invaded, what’s at stake, even what is really going on in Iraq. (It would have helped when bothering to inform us of what was going on there that they had actually been realistic and honest about what was transpiring rather than childishly optimistic and myopic.) And by allowing the Democrats to accuse them of all sorts of perfidy in the lead up to the conflict without constant, detailed, and passionate rebuttals, the President and his people have shattered any hope that the American public would stand by the Administration when the going got tough. The people have bought into the “Bush lied, people died” meme - or some variation - almost universally which has helped sap the will of the electorate to stay with the President on the war.

Of course, other matters also helped sap the will of the people. Blunders on the battle field that turned much of the population against us, misreading the situation on the ground, not changing strategies fast enough to reflect the true nature of the enemy we are fighting all contributed to the people’s sense that the folks running the war are either incompetent or had no workable plan for victory. The tremendous support given the President by the American people in the first few months after the invasion has been pissed away thanks to a political leadership that has not only failed to anticipate what the enemy in Iraq was going to do but also failed to realize the political threat here at home. They underestimated the desire and ability of the left to undermine the war effort by promulgating conspiracy theories, ascribing false motives to their actions, and even twisting the facts to paint a false picture to the American people of the war. The left is very good at storytelling. And the narrative they have so lovingly developed on the war has taken hold with the public thanks to the inexplicable and deplorable refusal of the Administration to defend itself in any useful way.

But as it becomes more and more apparent that our adventure in Iraq will sputter to an unsatisfying and potentially dangerous conclusion, my thoughts turn to those who have given so much in a cause that while good and noble, was mismanaged by their political and military leaders. The abilities, the courage, and the dedication of our military people in Iraq has been horribly misused. And I can’t escape the feeling that many of them will hold resentments when this is all over - resentment towards people like me who stopped being a cheerleader and became a critic (the reasons aren’t important) or perhaps even resentment at a government that gave them a job to do and then lost its way as well as losing the support of the people.

But they are not alone. They are brothers with those who for 230 years have bled out on battlefields all over the world. We like to think of ourselves as a peaceful people but I’m afraid history has a different take on the United States. We have fought wars for independence, for self defense, and to make the words in the Declaration and Constitution mean something. But we have also fought wars of belligerence, for conquest, for empire, and even for spite. And since the end of World War II, we have been at war almost constantly. And that’s not even including the “dirty wars” fought by our intelligence agencies in corners of the world where it seemed a good idea at the time to fight for dominance or for a change in government, or even for commercial interests.

But why we have fought doesn’t really matter. History’s judgement in these matters is, after all, seen through the prism of time with little thought to what kind of nation we have become as a result of those wars. We were a different nation 150, 100, even 50 years ago. We have grown up. We have responsibilities no nation has ever had - not Rome, nor Spain, or England or France when those nations dominated the planet. When a Tsunami devastates the South Pacific, no one thinks of calling in the French or Germans or even the Russians for assistance. They call upon the United States not only because we have the capability but because they know we can’t say no. There is no other nation in the history of human civilization who has had this kind of responsibility.

And that responsibility extends into the military sphere as well. Despite the public criticism, there is an almost universal recognition among the nations of the world that deposing the dictator Saddam was a good thing, a noble cause. What has happened in Iraq since then has been an occasion for much posturing and anti-American domestic politicking by many nations who should know better. They don’t speak German in France because American boys bled and died driving Hitler’s army from that sacred soil. And Soviet troops aren’t occupying Mittel Europa anymore because generations of American boys stood watch in places like Alaska, Germany, Greece, and Great Britain.

Yes, the world forgets. And they hate being reminded of it. It is a debt they will never be able to repay, especially to those sentinels of freedom who faced down the Russians for 45 long years. Or the 100,000 men who sacrificed their lives in Korea and Viet Nam to make Asia the economic dynamo it is today, at peace for the first time in 100 years. Or the Rangers who scaled the cliffs at Point du Hoc on D-Day. Or the Dough boys who rolled up the Kaiser’s armies after the French and British exhausted themselves almost to the point of defeat.

But as we approach another Memorial Day, I am struck by the connection between today’s American soldier and those of 100, even 200 years ago and all the years in between. Whether fighting for land, for empire, or to defend ourselves from an external enemy, the courage and skill with which the American fighting man has fought has been the envy of the world. European military observers from the 19th century marveled at it. And the 20th centuries dictators came to fear it. A combination of discipline and individual initiative that has been the hallmark of the American fighting man for 230 years is unprecedented. Other nations have tried to copy it and failed. It has proven to be an unbeatable combination on the battlefield.

But for all their skill. For all their sacrifices, the American soldier ultimately is only as successful as those who set policy and strategy and point him towards the enemy. In every war America has fought - from the Revolution to Iraq - the ineffable qualities in the American fighting man have been wasted by poor leadership. The Revolution had, among other disasters, General Charles Lee, an incompetent fop of a general. And there was the Congress who insisted Washington attempt to keep New York out of British hands - a disaster that almost ended the war before it started.

The Civil War had a veritable cornucopia of bad generals, stupid mistakes by Lincoln, and a Congress who stuck its nose constantly into the army’s business. The list goes on through World Wars I and II, Korea, Viet Nam and beyond. The fact is, our fighting men have been constantly ill served by those who ask them to die. I suppose war is fraught with this kind of peril. But it doesn’t make it any easier for the men who must suffer the consequences of others mistakes.

On Memorial Day, none of this matters. We don’t think much on why they died or even how they died. All we know and care about is that they died for us. We, the people, asked them to go in harm’s way and they responded courageously, giving that “last full measure of devotion” as Lincoln called it at Gettysburg. Sometimes we may have been wrong. Sometimes the conflict couldn’t be avoided. And sometimes, we were right. Circumstances, blurred by time and softened by memories of loved ones lost, are of secondary consideration. When the political leadership, freely elected by the people, decides to take the United States to war we are duty bound to support our fighting men - even if we disagree with the decision to fight. For in the end, it is their sacrifices that define us as a people.

My first reaction to hearing the news that Jerry Falwell had died was surprisingly the same kind of reaction to the news a couple of weeks ago that astronaut Wally Schirra had passed on: Sadness for having lost something from my youth. A reminder that the candle is starting to flicker and the skein of my life is unravelling faster than I thought possible just a short time ago.

Yeah, it’s selfish. And self-absorbed. But frankly, I view Falwell - like Schirra - as more of a talisman from my past than any great political/historical figure. He was a spokesman for a certain point of view among religious conservatives who thrived in a time of enormous intellectual upheaval for the conservative movement. And unlike some other TV evangelical preachers, he mostly avoided sins of the flesh in carrying out what I’m sure he saw as his mission from God.

Ed Morrissey is right. There will come a better time to assess the political legacy of the Reverend Mr. Falwell. But Ed is a fine Christian gentleman and I, a grubby minded atheist. So allow me to offer a few thoughts regarding the Reverend Mr. Falwell.

Every great political movement in American history has been driven by passion. The 19th and 20th century reformers who ended slavery, fought for womens’ rights, sought to ban demon rum, and agitated for unions were, for the most part, ordinary Americans swept up in historical tidal forces that altered the political and social landscape of America forever. What made them successful was the overarching, overweening, absolute belief that what they were doing was right and that people who opposed them were not just wrong but evil. They didn’t demonize the opposition out of political calculation but rather because they truly believed the fate of the republic or mankind was at stake in the successful prosecution of their cause. Ergo, if one opposes that cause, they are on the side of the dark one.

The period of the mid-1970’s to the late 1990’s could very well one day be remembered as another “Great Awakening” for American evangelicals. The first three “Awakenings” (or four if you subscribe to 1960’s “consciousness raising” as a religious movement) occurred during periods of great social ferment and spun off social movements like abolitionism, prairie populism, and prohibition. This particular “Awakening” inspired a generation of evangelical Christians to treat politics itself as a question of faith - that some political questions were answered not by reason, logic, and adherence to a set of political principles but rather by reading the bible carefully and gleaning God’s plan for man as laid out in the old or new Testaments.

The fact that secular Republicans who did indeed use reason, logic, and adherence to a set of political principles many times came to the same conclusions about issues as the evangelicals meant for an uneasy and at times, uncomfortable alliance with the party. And it was preachers like Jerry Falwell who first introduced these evangelicals - the “moral majority” - to Republican politics. They were never a majority (even of Republicans) and the “moral” failings of many prominent TV preachers in the 80’s and 90’s tarnished the image of the movement considerably with ordinary, secular Americans. But to this day, they make up a sizable (about 15%) and vocal minority in the party. Many analysts believe they were the difference in the last two presidential elections.

Falwell was perhaps the most visible of these TV preachers during the last 3 decades although other, more polished (bland) and carefully spoken leaders have supplanted him as a spiritual guide lately. They too, are not without their failures in resisting temptations of the flesh. But at least they don’t mutter outrageous comments about America being punished for our sins by planes being flown into buildings and a lot of innocents getting killed. While Falwell apologized for his comments following 9/11, there has always been this underlying threat in his sermons that unless America “reforms,” there will literally be hell to pay. In that respect, he is an echo of an earlier evangelical period where hellfire and tent revivals mixed easily with a population that was mostly rural and hungry for answers to life’s tragedies.

I have no doubt the left will make jokes about Falwell’s death as they are wont to do when it comes to anything where faith is involved. He was an easy target thanks to his simplistic world view and uncanny ability to say the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time.

But Jerry Falwell was an authentic American, a linear descendant of Jonathan Edwards whose 1741 sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” echoed many of the themes in Falwell’s preaching and was a seminal moment in the first “Great Awakening.” These true believers have undeniably contributed much that is positive to our politics. Reformers will tend to do that. But their limited view of issues and their tendency to view opposition to their ideas as evil also makes them a danger to democracy. Thankfully, their numbers and influence has always been limited. This was true even of the biggest TV preacher in history who when all was said and done, lived life by the light of faith he truly and honestly believed was given to him by the Almighty.

UPDATE

Allah has the reaction from the left. I’ll just send you over there without comment and urge you to start clicking.

Michelle Malkin has a round up of mostly MSM sources. As is her wont, she will probably expand coverage as more react comes in.

Were you really surprised that fully 35% of Democrats believe that George Bush had foreknowledge of 9/11? Couple that with the number who “aren’t sure” (waiting for an appointment with their Tarot card reader) and you have 61% of the “Reality Based Community” who have lost touch with reality and should be declared certifiably insane.

While the 9/11 Truthers go on their merry way, ignoring the fact that their “theories” have been totally debunked by the real members of the reality based community -scientists - Democrats continue to find it useful to intimate, to hint, to give credence to, and even to come right out and say that George Bush knew about 9/11 in advance and, by inference, planned and executed the operation.

It was the hard left that first raised questions about the Kennedy Assassination and largely for the same purpose; to undermine confidence in the government. While the Warren Commission has been bruised and battered over the years, it has held up as a narrative of the assassination surprisingly well. Three separate scientific inquiries have shown that the so-called “magic bullet” could easily have made the wounds on both Kennedy and Connally, the most controversial of the Commission’s conclusions.

Other aspects of the Commission’s report have never been seriously challenged while much of the “evidence” that Oswald was involved with the FBI or CIA or the Mafia has been largely debunked. And the “hero” in Oliver Stone’s 3 hour lie of a movie JFK Jim Garrison - the rabidly ambitious, homophobic, out of control District Attorney who ruined the life of an innocent man (Clay Shaw) was exposed for the rogue prosecutor he truly was by both CBS and NBC as well as several authors, most notably Gerald Posner.

It does no good, of course, to point this out. Most young people believe Oswald was working for the American government and was either a patsy in the plot to kill Kennedy or murdered the President at the behest of the CIA or the “military industrial complex.” The damage done by this fantasizing to faith in the government (not, I hasten to add, politicians) has been irreparable. And since some of those early Kennedy truthers were actually being paid by the KGB or writing in magazines that were funded by Soviet intelligence, the disinformation campaign (which began in France with the publication in the French Communist Party newspaper L’Humanite just days after Kennedy’s funeral that Oswald was a CIA agent) succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its perpetrators.

But this meme is different because apparently, only Democrats are stupid enough to think George Bush had anything to do with 9/11. Republicans, as to be expected, reject the idea of Bush involvement by 7-1. But it is independents who close the case for Democratic Party idiocy. Only 18% believe the fantasy.

Call it BDS. Call it laughable stupidity. But every time I read one of these mountebanks bragging about being a member of the “Reality Based Community,” I’m just going to leave a link to this Rassmussen survey as proof that most of those sites should carry the disclaimer “Caveat Emptor.”

Following up on yesterday’s post where I criticized Chris Muir for his use of black face to depict Hillary Clinton’s craven pandering to blacks by affecting the cadence and idioms of black language when speaking before an African American audience, I just want to thank Mr. Muir for his comments directed toward me on CQ Radio yesterday. (The relevant portion starts at about 9:50 into the podcast.)

It really wasn’t necessary.

It wasn’t necessary to point out that I’m soused with political correctness for criticizing his use of a symbol that I took great pains to give some historical background on - the use of black face in minstrel shows and how those entertainments shaped white attitudes and ideas toward black culture. Specifically the idea that context sometimes doesn’t matter when using symbols that are particularly hateful and hurtful.

Mr. Muir dismisses this argument out of hand by saying that “thinking people” are smarter than that and that context always trumps being sensitive to how symbols impact others. His statement that “symbols only have the power you give them,” could also apply to specific words like “nigger” (and, one would assume “kike” and “spic.”) He quotes from my piece at Heading Right to illustrate his point:

This is not political correctness per se, although there will be some racialists who would use Mr. Muir’s depiction to advance their own political agenda. Being sensitive to the real feelings of others is always the right thing to do regardless of intent or context.

Note to Chris: “Racialists” is indeed a word. See here and here and here. In another context, it refers to those who use race as a platform to attain a supposed moral superiority, usually in order to shut off debate on issues of political correctness or public policy. I don’t think Jeff Goldstein was the first to use it in that context, but his blog was the first place I saw it used thusly.

Muir takes my quote and says that “it is the very definition of political correctness.” He accuses me of using a “fast, cheap, and easy way to feel superior by assuming that those who are offended are weak and can’t make up their own minds.”

First of all, Muir assumes that the only people offended by black face are blacks. I challenge anyone of any color to watch the film I mentioned in my piece, Holiday Inn, with Bing Crosby singing “Abraham” in black face with his black cook and her son joining in without becoming embarrassed. It is offensive in the extreme as are the 97 other films listed here that use black face in various contexts.

I guess I’m just weak and can’t make up my own mind about these things. Too much listening to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, I guess.

Muir’s first amendment arguments are spot on and I would never advocate banning the use of words or symbols in any way whatsoever. But I will continue to make the argument that yes indeed, there are some symbols and words that are just too offensive, too drenched with a history of repression and violence that the use of them in any context and regardless of intent is just plain wrong.

I took a similar tack with my arguments against the use of the Confederate Battle Flag:

The history of the Battle of Gettysburg says that the Union won. But the heritage of the battle belongs to the south.

Distinctive and yes, hurtful. For many Americans, the Confederate Battle Flag represents a hateful system that held human beings as chattel slaves. For them, there is no heritage only history; a shameful chronicle of rape, of whippings, of oppression that colors our politics and culture down to this very day.

My admiration for the Southern soldier and the martial legacy of the Civil War that is so much a part of Southern history nevertheless must take a backseat to the very real pain caused by that “most distinctive of American symbols.” I sincerely hope that one day, we can reach a point in our national life where the Battle Flag can once again be flown, proudly bringing to mind the courage and valor of the Southern soldier. But not now. Not when that symbol has been used to show resistance to federal authority with regards to civil rights and integration.

Political correctness? Or an empathetic response to a hateful symbol? Those of you who read my site on a regular basis know that accusing me of being “politically correct” is pretty baseless. But I think that there are times we conservatives go too far in denigrating the very real and necessary reasons for, lack of a better term, political correctness; that to clutter our national conversation with words and symbols that come with historical baggage from a past where the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were relatively meaningless only serves to keep us separate as a people and gets in the way of uniting us.

It is a shame that the left uses political correctness as a club to score political points and choke off conversation. I would hope that by giving meaning and historical context to these very, very few words and symbols that signify hate and divisiveness in any context, we can elevate the national dialogue and talk about these issues without fear of wounding those who have suffered and continue to suffer from an American past that too often failed to live up to its golden promise of being that “shining city on a hill.”

I love Chris Muir’s laconic take on the days events seen through the eyes of two young, hip couples in his Day by Day cartoons.

But today’s installment may have crossed a line of good taste. I know many of you will disagree with me, but you decide.

Many of you will recall when we conservatives came down hard on Jane Hamsher of Firedog Lake for her photoshopped picture of Joe Lieberman in minstrel make up. It is an unnecessary, hurtful reminder of days past when black people were thought not good enough to share the stage with white people. And to make matters worse, the Minstrel Show itself portrayed blacks in the most nauseatingly, submissive, subservient ways imaginable.

Ever wonder why the black stereotype is so ingrained in American culture? You can thank the wild popularity of the Minstrel shows. For most of the 19th century, these variety shows toured the small towns, big cities, and rural hamlets with whites dressed up in black face and performing song, dance, and skits in a bastardization of how African Americans lived. Watermelon eating, the slow shuffling gait, laziness, the myth that all blacks can dance, and a cloying kind of paternalism that exists down to this day, represented by Hillary Clinton and other liberal Democrats, were staples of Minstrel shows - even later when blacks themselves began to perform in them! Black actors were actually forced to wear black face themselves as part of the “tradition.”

Minstrel shows were often the only “contact” small town and rural white America had with African American culture. The fact that the way that culture was portrayed was so insensitive and depraved is why you rarely see films today that show song and dance numbers with actors in black face. Such numbers were staples of early Hollywood musicals as were rancid portrayals of blacks in general.

One of the more beloved holiday movies of all time, Holiday Inn, which starred Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, with a nice turn by Cesar Romero as Astaire’s conniving agent has not been seen on over the air TV for many years due to a black face number. There is just something so embarrassing about watching white people acting out black stereotypes that one wants to turn away or change the channel. It is a painful reminder of how things used to be in America - a shameful legacy that to this day we are trying to overcome.

Muir makes a living going to the edge. That’s what good cartoonists do. But putting anyone in black face cannot be seen as anything except out of bounds for decent society. We conservatives said as much following Jane Hamsher’s extraordinary Lieberman slur. And we should say the same about Mr. Muir and his idea of humor.

Okay…have at me in the comments.

UPDATE

Just Barking Mad gets it right with regards to Hillary and the Dems attitude toward race:

The question is whether this is the famous Clinton Chameleon ability or the more subtle racism of seeing people, as Muir’s Damon says, as a group and not as individuals. I don’t think that Ms. Clinton is a racist like the Kluxers of old (did someone say Robert Byrd?) but she is the new racist, the kind that sees blocs of voters as targets to be pandered to, instead of individuals. Hence her speaking to an audience like it was full of Aunt Jemimas and Steppin Fetchits.

I don’t want to put words in Mr. JBM’s mouth but it appears that he is justifying Muir’s use of black face to highlight this pandering to the group (and by extension, recognizing stereotypes) by Hillary. (A point made by long time commenter BD in the comments.)

Okay, I’ll buy that. But is there another way - a less hurtful, more sensitive way - it could have been done? My argument is not that Muir’s context was off it is that black face as a negative cultural icon is always wrong - as much as showing a burning cross.

UPDATE II

I have been called a “misogynist” and “sexist” by Jon Swift and TBogg for using the old Saturday Night Live comeback by Dan Akroyd to Jane Curtain during their “Point/Counterpoint” skits where Akroyd (impersonating the old conservative Richmond Times Dispatch columnist James Kirkpatrick whose 60 Minutes segment with liberal columnist Shana Alexander was being parodied) would begin his response to Curtain’s reasoned argument with “Jane, you ignorant slut.”

I don’t know how old either of those two gentlemen are, (although I heard a rumor that TBogg may be up for his learners permit any day now), but I apologize if the cultural reference was a little dated. Of course I don’t know if Hamsher is a slut or not. However, “ignorant” fits her to a tee as most reasonable people would agree.

This post originally appeared April 18, 2005

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,–
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

The image has captured the imagination of American school children for almost 150 years. A lone rider, braving capture at the hands of the British, riding along the narrow country lanes and cobblestone streets of the picturesque towns and villages of New England, shouting out defiance to tyranny, raising the alarm “To every Middlesex village and farm,” his trusty horse carrying him on his ride into legend.

To bad it didn’t quite happen that way.

Longfellow’s poem immortalized Revere’s ride in a way that would never have occurred to the silversmith’s contemporaries. It wasn’t so much that the incident went unnoticed. It’s just that Longfellow took so many liberties with the facts surrounding the event as to obscure the real story of that night and by so doing, overshadow the real accomplishments of one of the more interesting characters in the entire revolution.

Let’s forgive Longfellow his myth making. The poet was, after all, using the ride to illustrate American themes - something almost unheard of in literature until that time. Along with his other great narrative poem Hiawatha, Longfellow has been credited with introducing the rest of the world to truly American motifs and myths. Paul Revere’s Ride, while historically inaccurate, nevertheless conveys the breathless spirit of resistance of the colonists to British rule.

Revere himself joined that resistance early on. Born in 1734, Revere has been described as a silversmith. This does him an injustice. He was much more the artist than the craftsman. His involvement in the earliest stages of the revolution was a consequence of his friendship with that scowling propagandist Sam Adams. He was a prominent member of the “Committee of Safety” that was formed to protect the rights of Massachusetts citizens against threats to liberty, both real and imagined, of the colonial government. And he was one of the grand jurors who, in 1774 refused to serve after the British Parliament made the justices independent of the people by having the colonial governor pay the salaries of the judges.

Sam Adams knew a good thing when he saw it and used Revere’s talents as an artist to further the cause of rebellion. He urged Revere to engrave several inflammatory caricatures of British politicians that Adams promptly had copied and distributed. Following the Boston Massacre in 1770, Revere engraved a seditious remembrance of that event that was also widely disseminated. This use of art in the cause of revolution wasn’t necessarily new, but it showed just how imaginative Adams could be.

Revere and Adams were also behind one of the most shocking events of the revolution, the Boston Tea Party. Adams was trying to provoke the British government and succeeded beyond his wildest imaginings. England closed the port of Boston and bivouacked troops in the city.

Which brings us to Revere’s ride. Or, more accurately, the part that Revere played on that momentous night. The redcoats decided that it was prudent to both capture the more radical elements of the Sons of Liberty, the group started by Adams and John Hancock as an adjunct to the colonial militia, as well as disarm the populace. To that end they sent two company’s of elite Grenadiers into the countryside to arrest Hancock, Adams, and Joseph Warren for treason as well as seize the cannon and powder of the local militia being stored at Concord.

Revere was a member of a group known as the North End Mechanics who patrolled the streets of Boston, keeping an eye on British military activity. When it became clear the British were ready to march, Revere borrowed a horse and rode off from Charlestown to Lexington where Adams and Co. were staying. Duly warned, the trio of patriots made ready to flee. Before going, Warren sent both Revere and another friend of Adams’, William Dawes, on the ride that would echo down through the ages. They left Lexington around midnight and were joined by another patriot Samuel Prescott. Making their way to Concord, the three men alerted the farms and tiny villages along the way with the news that the red coats were on the march.

Around 1:00 AM, the little group ran into a road block manned by British regulars who had been told to stop the colonists from trying to communicate with one another. Revere was captured while Dawes and Prescott got away. Prescott eventually made it to Concord and alerted the militia there.

Revere was extremely cooperative with his captors. He told them that he had already warned Hancock and his friends and that 500 militia men were assembling at that moment to resist the British. That last part was pure bluff but the regulars didn’t know that. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, the British soldiers decided to return to barracks, releasing Revere around 3:00 AM.

But what about the lanterns in the North Church, the famous “One if by land, two if by sea?” Revere had actually asked a friend to be ready to do that to warn patriots on the other side of the river in Charlestown. By the time those lanterns were hung, Revere was gone. While he probably saw them, he didn’t need to know how the British were coming, just that they were on their way.

What all this goes to show is that, while the myth may be more dramatic than what actually happened, the reality of what was going on that fateful night is certainly interesting enough. Thanks to Revere, his friends avoided the gallows for they most certainly would have been convicted of treason. And given what happened the following day in Lexington and Concord, the work done by Revere, Dawson, and Prescott to arouse the countryside contributed in no small way to events that became known as “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”

Revere’s participation in the revolution was by no means over. He was commissioned a Major of infantry in the Massachusetts militia in April 1776; was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of artillery in November; was stationed at Castle William, defending Boston harbor, and finally received command of this fort. He served in an expedition to Rhode Island in 1778, and in the following year participated in the disastrous Penobscot Expedition. Upon his return from that fiasco, he was court martialed for failing to obey orders. The charges were trumped up by his commanding officer, trying to absolve himself of blame for the military disaster that cost of the lives of 500 men and 43 ships. Revere was acquitted.

After the war, Revere proved himself a canny businessman and bold entrepreneur. He took advantage of the religious revival sweeping the country after the revolution by manufacturing church bells, a business that made him wealthy. He also pioneered the production of copper plating in America and supplied the young country’s navy with copper spikes for the planking. In effect, he became one of the first successful industrialists in American history.

Where do we place Revere in the pantheon of American heroes? While not a Founding Father in that he didn’t sign the Declaration of Independence or serve in Congress, Revere played a very large role in acting as “the sharp end of the stick” the Founders sought to beat the British with. While not a part of some of the more unruly elements that took part in the Boston Massacre and the Tea Party, he and his friend Sam Adams were not above using those elements to further the cause of revolution, a goal for which he worked more than a decade to achieve. In that respect, perhaps we can call him a “Founding Brother.”

As we celebrate the 230th anniversary of his ride into history (as well as the poem that immortalized it), it’s good to remember that Revere was the quintessential American soul; an artist whose talents and ardent support for the cause of American liberty defined a generation of patriots who, to this day, we stand back and look on in awe, marveling at their accomplishments.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

UPDATE:

The Commissar has a first class “update” to Longfellow’s poem that is not only riotiously funny but spot on satire as well. A sample:

Listen my children and you shall hear
- insensitive to the hearing-impaired, no ASL inset
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
- in violation of Massachusetts seat-belt and helmet laws
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
- non Y2K-compliant wording (not even Y1.8K compliant)
Hardly a man is now alive
- grossly chauvinistic, patriarchal, and misogynist
Who remembers that famous day and year.
- insulting to victims of Alzheimer’s Disease

UPDATE II: 4/19

I wish I had seen this yesterday.

Jule Crittendon has about a dozen eyewitness accounts and sworn statements on what exactly happened that night both from the British and American viewpoints.

Fascinating stuff. Read it all.

He was an unabashed liberal, a self proclaimed “New Deal” Democrat who pushed himself into the public’s consciousness with a combination of sheer brilliance and an astonishing output of the written word. Writing articles for publications as diverse as The Nation, Huffington Post, Ladies Home Journal, and TV Guide, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. also contributed to American scholarship, winning two Pulitzer Prizes and two National Book awards for his Andrew Jackson biography and chronicles of the Kennedys.

In the end, he was stricken with a heart attack in a restaurant while dining with his family. For a man who could wax poetic about good food as easily as he could enthrall an audience with insider stories of the Kennedy White House, it is fitting indeed that he was taken while engaging in one of life’s pleasures he so boisterously enjoyed while nestled in the bosom of his family:

Twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Mr. Schlesinger exhaustively examined the administrations of two prominent presidents, Andrew Jackson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, against a vast background of regional and economic rivalries. He strongly argued that strong individuals like Jackson and Roosevelt could bend history.

The notes he took for President John F. Kennedy to use in writing his own history, became, after the president’s assassination, grist for Mr. Schlesinger’s own “A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House,” winner of both the Pulitzer and a National Book Award in 1966.

His 1978 book on the president’s brother, “Robert Kennedy and His Times,” lauded the subject as the most politically creative man of his time, but acknowledged that Robert had played a larger role in trying to overthrow Castro than the author had acknowledged in “A Thousand Days.”

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. may not have been America’s greatest historian. But his impact on American letters, American culture, and American politics was so profound that his influence surpassed even that of his famous father, Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. who pioneered the study of social history back in the 1920’s. This father-son tag team of insightful academics represented a true link with our past that echoes down to this day. The father was proud of the fact that he actually shook the hand of a man whose own father had served with George Washington in the Continental Army. That kind of reverence for the past was passed on to Arthur Jr.:

Mr. Schlesinger saw life as a walk through history. He wrote that he could not stroll down Fifth Avenue without wondering how the street and the people on it would have looked a hundred years ago.

“He is willing to argue that the search for an understanding of the past is not simply an aesthetic exercise but a path to the understanding of our own time,” Alan Brinkley, the historian, wrote.

Mr. Schlesinger wore a trademark dotted bowtie, showed an acid wit and had a magnificent bounce to his step. Between marathons of writing as much as 5,000 words a day, he was a fixture at Georgetown salons when Washington was clubbier and more elitist; a lifelong aficionado of perfectly-blended martinis; and a man about New York, whether at Truman Capote’s famous parties or escorting Jacqueline Kennedy to the movies.

Some colleagues, perhaps jealous of his celebrity, grumbled about the historian’s flitting about the social scene in New York and Washington, going from party to party while being photographed with Hollywood starlets as well as the high and mighty of politics and industry. But what his critics failed to understand was there was a very good reason that Schlesinger was able to move in so many diverse and even contradictory social circles.

Quite simply, he was a very interesting man.

The range of his intellect was truly remarkable. He could talk about the intricacies of New Deal social policy one minute and expound on the perfection of a well mixed martini the next. By all accounts, he was a fascinating raconteur who mixed politics and history into a delicious mix of tall tale and scholarly lecture. When he held forth at gatherings of the powerful, people listened.

In recent years, he regularly appeared on television as an analyst as well as a partisan voice defending the Democrats and attacking Republicans. His politics reflected his roots as a New Deal Democrat which placed him at odds with the modern hard left on a number of occasions. A strong anti-Communist he was not enamored as many liberals of his generation with committing ground forces to Viet Nam. But once there, he argued for policies that echo hauntingly today.

In his 1967 book The Bitter Heritage: Viet Nam and American Democracy, Schlesinger resigned himself to fighting the war while offering a penetrating historical critique of our involvement:

When it comes to Viet Nam, Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. roosts neither with the hawks nor the all-out doves. Admittedly, he is unhappy that the U.S. ever got involved there, but he argues in this slender book, drawn chiefly from three recent magazine articles, that “our precipitate withdrawal now would have ominous reverberations throughout Asia.” He thinks the U.S. must “stop widening and Americanizing the war,” but he has no illusions about the cutthroat, terrorist tactics of the Viet Cong, and he does not want them to take over South Viet Nam. What, then, is the U.S. to do? Says Schlesinger: “We must oppose further widening of the war” by “holding the line in South Viet Nam…”

Schlesinger also argues that the U.S. should devote its resources more to “clear-and-hold” operations aimed at creating secure areas, than to “search-and-destroy missions, which drive the Viet Cong out of villages one day and permit them to slip back the next.” But he fails to note that no clear-and-hold strategy can succeed as long as guerrillas are permitted to terrorize the countryside—and it is the search-and-destroy sweeps that keep them on the run.

A vocal opponent of the war in Iraq as well as anything and everything Bush, Schlesinger’s last book skewered the Administration for their Middle East policies:

In his last book, “War and the American Presidency,” published in 2004, Mr. Schlesinger challenged the foundations of the foreign policy of President George W. Bush, calling the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath “a ghastly mess.” He said the president’s curbs on civil liberties would have the same result as similar actions throughout American history.

“We hate ourselves in the morning,” he wrote.

But beyond the partisanship, beyond the man about town and debonair socialite, there was a serious, brilliant academic whose high standards and achingly beautiful prose made reading Schlesinger a pure joy.

His first Pulitzer for The Age of Jackson is still required reading for most college courses dealing with that period in American history. Its economic deterministic approach to the Jacksonian movement may be a little dated and the largely discredited theory of cyclical movements in American history - politics swinging like a pendulum between liberal and conservative ideologies - is perhaps a shallow construct. But there is no denying the careful scholarship and brilliant prose that brings the people and events of that period in history to life. Schlesinger incorporated the social history of the times to argue that Jacksonian democracy was not a movement made up of rough and ready frontiersmen allied with Jeffersonian yeoman farmers but a class struggle based on the idea of a centralized government - not unlike policies he supported as a New Dealer.

But the works he is known best for were the result of his friendship and admiration for John and Robert Kennedy. A supporter of Adlai Stevenson in 1960, Schlesinger was asked to work as a Special Assistant to President Kennedy for several reasons, not the least of which was the recognition by JFK that the historian would probably write about the Administration anyway:

In their 1970 book, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers suggest that the new president saw some political risk in hiring such an unabashed liberal. He decided to keep the appointment quiet until another liberal, Chester Bowles, was confirmed as under secretary of state.

The authors, both Kennedy aides, said they asked Mr. Kennedy if he took Mr. Schlesinger on to write the official history of the administration. Mr. Kennedy said he would write it himself.

“But Arthur will probably write his own,” the president said, “and it will be better for us if he’s in the White House, seeing what goes on, instead of reading about it in The New York Times and Time magazine.”

It is unclear exactly what was Schlesinger’s role in the Administration. His official title was misleading; special assistant for Latin American affairs and speech writer. Time Magazine at the time called him the Administration’s conduit to intellectuals. He was a regular at the impromptu seminars put on by Robert Kennedy at his house in Virginia and actually organized most of them. The lineup of intellectuals at these gatherings were truly impressive. Social critics, scientists, historians, military theorists, artists of all kinds - some historians point to the attendance by most of the influential members of the Kennedy Administration at these seminars as proof that much of the intellectual framework for the New Frontier was thrashed out during these sessions.

Following the assassination of JFK, Schlesinger wrote A Thousands Days, a national best seller and worthy of his second Pulitzer. Some may be dismissive of the hagiographic nature of the book (Gore Vidal called it “a political novel”), but there is no denying the power of the prose nor its fascinating glimpse into the center of American power as seen through the historian’s eye.

In 1968, Schlesinger latched on to Robert Kennedy’s ill fated campaign only to see that journey also end in tragedy. The book that emerged from Schlesinger’s pain 10 years later is, to my mind, his finest work; a two volume tour de force examination of not only Robert Kennedy and his campaign for the Presidency, but also the decade of the 1960’s and how the events and ideas that bubbled up from the street during that period changed America.

Schlesinger spent the intervening years studying and writing about violence and its connectedness to ideas and power. He wrestled with this subject for much of the 70’s (taking a break only to help bring down Nixon in his angry The Imperial Presidency) with his journey culminating in the ultimately healing biography of a man he obviously admired and felt great affection for. The book was personal, political, but also extraordinarily sourced and researched. It garnered him his second National Book Award.

Schlesinger may have been a liberal’s liberal. But that didn’t stop him from challenging political correctness nor the dominant New Left ideas regarding foreign policy and America’s role in the world. Not only a staunch anti-Communist, Schlesinger was an internationalist in the traditional sense. He saw America’s mission as bringing freedom to the world wherever possible while working with international institutions like the United Nations to solve conflicts. While his faith in the UN may have been misplaced, he never lost sight of American interests and the need to defend them.

Where he parted company with the new left was in some of their wackier ideas regarding social policy. He was a vociferous critic of multiculturalism, specifically “Afro-centrism” that he at one time compared to the Klan:

In 1991, Mr. Schlesinger provoked a backlash with “The Disuniting of America,” an attack on the emergent “multicultural society” in which he said Afrocentrists claimed superiority and demanded that their separate identity be honored by schools and other institutions.

The novelist Ishmael Reed denounced Mr. Schlesinger as a “follower of David Duke,” the former Ku Klux Klan leader. The Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. caricatured Mr. Schlesinger’s arguments as a demand for “cultural white-face.”

Mr. Schlesinger was nonplussed. He frequently described himself as an unreconstructed New Dealer whose basic thinking had changed little in a half century.

“What the hell,” he answered when questioned by The Washington Post about his attack on multiculturalism. “You have to call them as you see them. This too shall pass.”

A man of the left but not a slave to its diktats and demands for ideological purity. In short, an independent thinker who never let politics get in the way of what he stood for. In this respect, he was a rare breed, right or left.

For Schlesinger, it was the intellectual journey that was important, as he points out in this, one of his last articles, written on January 1, 2007 and published in The New York Times:

History is the best antidote to delusions of omnipotence and omniscience. Self-knowledge is the indispensable prelude to self-control, for the nation as well as for the individual, and history should forever remind us of the limits of our passing perspectives. It should strengthen us to resist the pressure to convert momentary impulses into moral absolutes. It should lead us to acknowledge our profound and chastening frailty as human beings — to a recognition of the fact, so often and so sadly displayed, that the future outwits all our certitudes and that the possibilities of the future are more various than the human intellect is designed to conceive.

For those of us who love our history and respect those who toil with tireless dedication to inform us and challenge our assumptions about who we are and where we have come from, those words should be a clarion call to apply ourselves and learn as much as we can about our past so that we can grasp the present and understand the forces that shape our modern world.

This is where history and politics come together. And the death of Arthur Schlesinger makes us much poorer for having lost a voice that brought our past to life and showed us how relevant it was to our deliberations today.

UPDATE

In re-reading this piece, I see where I got so caught up in describing my favorite Schlesinger book that I failed to give its title!

Robert Kennedy and His Times

Despite the fact that Speaker Pelosi has made it very clear that Representative Murtha’s slow bleed the troops plan is a non starter, the Pennsylvania Congressman is evidently determined to bring the issue to the floor for a vote. And at least one influential Democrat is hoping he does:

He described his plan to the Democratic Caucus two weeks ago and again more recently on MoveCongress.org last week.

No sooner was the interview aired than Middle East hawks that have been cheerleading this war from its inception (the White House, FOX News and the myriad of entertainers who make up the Republican right-wing noise machine) started licking their chops at the prospect of exposing the Democrats as cut and run peaceniks that don’t support our troops.

They suggest that efforts such as giving our troops 1) mandatory home base time with their families between deployments — 365 days for the Army and 270 days for the Marines 2) sufficient training and equipment and 3) mandatory face to face physical, mental and emotional health evaluations upon their return from combat — a standard practice before this Administration came to power — will demoralize our soldiers and turn the Middle East into a cauldron of blood and chaos.

First, an obvious disclaimer: Representative Jim Moran (D-Anti-Semite) is absolutely, positively, and without qualification not related to me in any way, shape, or form. I would hazard a guess and say that our genes diverged millions of years ago - his branch of the Morans ending up evolving with the slugs and slimy things in prehistoric swamps only to emerge quite recently to slither around the halls of Congress. The true and noble branch of the Moran family stayed in the trees and ate nuts and fruit, learning how to walk upright only recently because, obviously, we were waiting for the invention of the automobile. No sense in walking when you can grab a ride, right?

At any rate, Mr. Moran has it all wrong. There are precious few of us who would not vouchsafe our military people sufficient rest, time with their families, health screening, and adequate training so that they can continue to perform in such spectacularly competent fashion in Iraq.

And there certainly is not a monolithic response on the right to Mr. Murtha’s plan. Oak Leaf at Polipundit:

Having 12 months between deployments, ensuring that soldiers are trained to military (not Democrat/Republican) standards and returning stop loss to an emergency measure not a routine personal policy is good for readiness, good for the troops and good for the Nation.

If you believe in the Global War on Terror, you will support these reasonable common sense measures and let the military (not politicians) set readiness and training standards.

Not only being the “right thing” it is good politics in the long run.

I, and most others on the right would normally agree with these benchmarks. However, despite what has gone on in the past with deployments, this time around, the stakes are far from normal. We are, in fact, in what I think most people agree - both right and left - is the political crisis of the war.

I say this because it is painfully obvious that regardless of how the present surge strategy plays out, this will be the last opportunity for the Administration to succeed in tamping down the violence in Baghdad (and Anbar province) while giving the Iraqi government some desperately needed political capitol to effect changes in society that will give the Sunnis hope for the future.

The oil revenue sharing plan recently agreed to is an excellent first step - a small one to be sure - but hugely significant. It is the first time the Iraqi government has officially recognized the Sunnis in a positive way. All other recognition of the Sunnis in the Constitution were related to strictures against the Baathists. There have also been some petty local laws that have made the Sunnis feel like outsiders in their own country. This is what has been driving the insurgency; Sunnis believing they have no choice but to die or be herded out of Iraq as refugees or fight the government and the foreign troops that enable their oppressors to survive. As long as the Maliki government can make steady progress on other fronts, the surge will have fulfilled its purpose.

But beyond the surge is the almost dead certainty that we will begin drawing down our forces probably no later than the end of this year and at the latest by the Spring of 2008 regardless of whether the surge works or not. There is no political will in Congress even from Republicans to maintain troop levels beyond that date. There will be no precipitous withdrawal. But neither will there be the desire in Congress - especially by Republicans - for the war to continue at its present level.

There will be “redeployments” and troop rotations back home. Those troops will be replaced by Iraqi troops and police who evidently are benefiting enormously from living with Americans in the neighborhoods where they patrol together, especially the latter.

All of this is in the future. The present situation is an acknowledged crisis and extreme measures are called for - even beyond what has occurred in the past with redeployments. To make a crude analogy, suppose instead of redeploying from the States to Iraq, we were talking about redeploying Patton’s Third Army during the Battle of the Bulge.

Patton’s army was facing east and fighting a pitched battle against the Germans on December 19th when Eisenhower asked the General how long it would take to pull his troops out of the line and march them north to hit the Germans in the flank as they moved farther into the salient or “bulge” made by their rapid advance. Eisenhower, not knowing that Patton had already made plans for such a turn to the north, was surprised when Patton told him that it would take only 48 hours.

The move itself would have the effect of “relieving” Bastogne where the 101st Airborne was hanging on grimly, surrounded as they were by the German army. But, despite the inference made by Patton boosters and popular culture, his move north was not intended to specifically “relieve” anyone. It was an offensive operation aimed at destroying the German army who had finally come into the open. The relief of Bastogne would be a consequence of successful operations carried out against the enemy.

Patton had not only planned the move in advance of his meeting with Ike, he actually started his troops moving before he left for the conference. Thus, 72 hours later, Patton’s Third Army was facing the spearhead of the German attack after pulling his troops out of one fight in south central France, turning them 90 degrees, and marching them more than 150 miles to the north in order to engage the enemy in another battle. It was a truly remarkable achievement in logistics and support not to mention a demonstration of the strength and stamina of the American GI.

Now a careful commander may not have pushed his troops so far so fast. And he almost certainly wouldn’t have engaged the enemy without giving his troops a little rest and a chance to eat a hot meal in the bitter cold. But Patton correctly saw the opportunity to crush the German army and he pushed his exhausted troops into the fight immediately. And despite what I am sure could be defined as severely degraded readiness and efficiency within the ranks of the Third Army, those Americans went into battle because of the enormous opportunity the Germans presented the allies by coming out from behind their defensive positions and going on the offensive.

As I said, a crude analogy but I hope my point is understood. There are times when the die must be cast and the risks taken. This is one of those times. The opportunity we have in Iraq will not come again. And while no one is expecting miracles, there is every hope that the situation can improve dramatically enough so that the Iraqi government can begin to exercise more control over their own capitol while taking the steps necessary to bring the factions together and start the long process toward reconciliation and peace.

I daresay many in the military probably feel as Oak Leaf does and I wouldn’t blame them one bit. But at the same time, you can’t shut the political realities off any more than you can forget the sacrifices of the families and troops who are now bearing the brunt of our past failures and mistakes in Iraq by being forced once again to deploy with less time off and less training than they need or the military may desire.

This, for all practical purposes, is it. Time to realize it and act accordingly.

George Washington
a poem by James Russell Lowell

Soldier and statesman, rarest unison;
High-poised example of great duties done
Simply as breathing, a world’s honors worn
As life’s indifferent gifts to all men born;
Dumb for himself, unless it were to God,
But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent,
Tramping the snow to coral where they trod,
Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content;
Modest, yet firm as Nature’s self; unblamed
Save by the men his nobler temper shamed;
Never seduced through show of present good
By other than unsetting lights to steer
New-trimmed in Heaven, nor than his steadfast mood
More steadfast, far from rashness as from fear,
Rigid, but with himself first, grasping still
In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm of will;
Not honored then or now because he wooed
The popular voice, but that he still withstood;
Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is but one
Who was all this and ours, and all men’s - Washington

July 8, 1775

The poem is a fragment from the ode for the centenary of Washington’s taking command of the American army at Cambridge.

It says something important about George Washington that his influence on American life, politics, and culture would be so profound more than 75 years after his death. Perhaps only FDR, whose dominant personality and management of the two great crisis of the 20th century - depression and war - rivals Washington’s influence on successive generations of Americans.

Washington’s contributions to our history are almost mythic in nature. Indeed, that may be our biggest problem with coming to grips with him as a man. We ask ourselves, is it possible that someone could have refused a crown or dictatorship when it was so easily in his grasp? This is not hyperbole. There was a day - one day - when Washington could have had it all, that if he was less of a patriot and lover of liberty, America would have been changed forever.

Let me take you back to that day. The year was 1783. While formal hostilities had virtually ceased between the Crown and the American colonies, peace talks continued to drag on in London. The Congress was broke and in serious debt even though the Articles of Confederation, which required individual states to contribute funds to the Congress, had been approved two years earlier.

The Continental Army was restless. Many of its officers hadn’t been paid in months. Promises made by Congress at the time of their enlistment regarding reimbursement for food and clothing, pensions, and a pledge to give the officers half pay for life were either not being honored or were rumored to be withdrawn. Petitions by groups of officers to Congress asking them to redress these and other grievances either went unanswered or were brushed aside.

As a result of these indignities, a cabal of officers headed up by Colonel Walter Stewart and Major John Armstrong, an aide to George Washington’s chief rival Horatio Gates, were making plans to march to Philadelphia at the head of their men to force Congress to deal with their demands. The implication was clear; if Congress would not address their concerns, the men would enforce their will at the point of a bayonet.

The plotters believed that General Washington would be forced by their actions to become a reluctant participant in a military coup against the government. They believed that by presenting a united front composed of the senior officers in the army, Washington would have no choice but to back them.

To that end, they scheduled a meeting on March 10 of all general and field officers. With the invitation to the meeting, a fiery letter was circulated calling on the soldiers not to disarm in peace and, if the war were to continue, to disband and leave the country to the tender mercies of the British Army.

Washington got wind of the meeting and was deeply troubled. He issued a General Order canceling the gathering and instead, called for another meeting on March 15 ” of representatives of all the regiments to decide how to attain the just and important object in view.” The next day, another letter was circulated by the plotters that implied by issuing the General Order, Washington agreed with their position.

With the army teetering on the edge of revolt and the future of the United States as a republic in the balance, Washington stood before the assembled officers and began to speak. He started by saying he sympathized with their plight, that he had written countless letters to Congress reminding them of their responsibilities to the soldiers, and begged the officers not to take any action that would “lessen the dignity and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained.”

At that point, Washington reached into his pocket and withdrew a letter from a Congressman outlining what the government would do to address the soldiers grievances. But something was wrong. Washington started reading the letter but stopped abruptly. Then, with a sense of the moment and flair for the dramatic not equaled until Ronald Reagan became President, Washington slowly reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a pair of spectacles. There were gasps in the room as most of the officers had never seen their beloved General display such a sign of physical weakness in public. As he put the glasses on, Washington said “Gentlemen, you’ll permit me to put on my spectacles, as I have grown not only old but almost blind in the service of my country.”

Witnesses say that the officers almost to a man began to weep. This powerful reminder of the nearly eight years of service together and their shared sacrifices and hardships won the day. The revolt died then and there.

There were other days, other challenges where Washington showed a self-abnegation so profound as to allow many historians to charge that the General was more concerned about how he would look in the history books than with the kind of virtuous selflessness Washington’s contemporaries ascribed as his motives. In truth, Washington was not without a flair for the dramatic as his speech before Congress resigning his Commission attests:

Happy in the confirmation of our Independence and Sovereignty, and pleased with the oppertunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable Nation, I resign with satisfaction the Appointment I accepted with diffidence. A diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which however was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our Cause, the support of the supreme Power of the Union, and the patronage of Heaven.

Of course, to get the job of Commanding General in the first place, Washington paraded around the Second Continental Congress wearing his Virginia Militia uniform which sort of puts Washington’s claims to “diffidence” about serving in a different light.

And then, the peroration:

Having now finished the work assigned to me, I retire form the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life.

There is every indication in both the private correspondence with his wife Martha as well as public pronouncements like this that Washington was dead serious about retiring forever. Only the gravest of crisis could bring him back into the “theater of Action.” And as Scott Johnson points out, it was the Constitutional Convention, convening at a time when the American experiment was in dire straits and the country threatening to fly apart, that Washington once again shouldered the burden of leadership:

Take, for example, Washington’s contribution to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Washington’s mere presence lent the undertaking and its handiwork the legitimacy that resulted in success. The convention’s first order of business was the election of a presiding officer. Washington was the delegates’ unanimous choice.

Presiding over the convention during that fateful summer, Washington said virtually nothing. In his wonderful book on Washington, Richard Brookhiser notes: “The esteem in which Washington was held affected his fellow delegates first of all…Washington did not wield the power he possessed by speaking. Apart from his lecture on secrecy, Washington did not address the Convention between the first day and the last.”

One other aspect Brookhiser brings out about the Convention was the debates over the powers that would be granted to the President under the brand new Constitution. Once it became clear that there would, in fact, be an executive, delegates could only think of one man who could possibly fill the bill - and he was sitting silently in front of them. As the delegates debated the powers that would be granted the chief executive, they would glance from time to time at Washington to see his reaction. So powerful a presence was Washington that he influenced deliberations simply by being in the room.

Scott calls Washington “The Indispensable Man,” quoting James Flexner whose marvelous 4 volume biography is still considered the seminal work on Washington’s life 30 years after the last volume was published. And the man one discovers in reading Flexner, Brookhiser, Harrison Clark , Richard Norton Smith and others is not a perfect being. A slave owner, a patrician who was distrustful of “the mob” as he called the common folk.

A man who could be vain, petty, ultra sensitive to slights both real and imagined, Washington was most of all a man of his times. He was able to embrace new ideas and had the vision to see America as an independent nation because he was a keen student of the currents of thought that were running through the colonies in the 1760’s as well as pre-Enlightenment Europe. Washington may have been one of the most plugged in of our Founding Fathers. The stream of visitors to Mount Vernon never let up, to the point that poor Martha complained about the constant overnight guests. He also kept in close touch with friends in Europe, gauging the reaction to the unrest in the colonies. While publicly uncommitted to independence, some historians believe Washington recognized the inevitability of a separate nation as early as 1774 with the imposition of the Intolerable Acts.

A man of his times, yes. But also a man for all time.