Peter – All fair points. However, I’m kind of surprised you don’t detect even the faintest whiff of Reaganism in that speech. Reagan could chuck quite a few words in the air himself — as you well know having written so many of them. But he was quite practical about translating those words into policy. I don’t know that anyone thinks Bush is going to send tanks into Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan tomorrow in order to be consistent with his speech. But, the more I think about it the more I believe that his speech was intended for a global and transgenerational audience. He was picking sides, throwing down the gauntlet, laying out first principles etc. I really would be surprised if that address isn’t being cursed by mullahs and murderers around the world. You know umpteen times more about presidential rhetoric than I do, but I’m not sure that the intended audience was you, Peggy and WFB — or that it should have been. Yes, he wrote a check yesterday we can never literally cash, but I like the dogma he laid out. And if we have to make practical concessions to reality every now and then — and be called hypocritical for it — that’s fine by me. I’d rather fall short of that principle every now and then than stick to the wrong principles like glue.
The sign pointing to the sunny uplands of history is still pointing in the right direction even if it doesn’t go there itself.