--Quartermaster General
"Alas my poor country! It has strong limbs to march and meet the foe, stout arms to strike heavy blows, brave hearts to dare. But the brains, the brains -- have we no brains to use the arms and limbs and eager hearts with cunning? [..] I am sick and tired of disaster and the fools that bring disaster upon us."
-- New York Corporal
"Money you have expended without limit, and blood poured out like water. Defeat, debt, taxation, and sepulchers -- these are your only trophies."
-- Ohio Representative
"His soul seems made of leather, and incapable of any grand or noble emotion. Compared with the mass of men, he is a line of flat prose in a beautiful and spirited lyric. He lowers, he never elevates you. You leave his presence with your enthusiasm dampened, your better feelings crushed, and your hopes cast to the winds. You ask not, can this man carry the nation through its terrible struggles? but can the nation carry this man through them, and not perish in the attempt?"
"He is wrong-headed, the attorney not the lawyer, the petty politician not the statesman, and, in my belief, ill-deserving of the sobriquet of Honest. I am out of all patience with him, is there no way of inducing him to resign. . . ?"
--Orestes Brownson, author
"You cannot change the President's character of conduct. . .surrounded by toadies and office-seekers, to persuade himself that he was specially chosen by the Almighty for this crisis, and well chosen. This conceit has never yet been beaten out of him, and until it is, no human wisdom can be of much avail. I see nothing for it but to let the ship of state drift along, hoping that the current of public opinion may bring it safely into port"
-- Senator William Pitt Fessenden, Maine(R)
"Can nothing be done to reach the President's ear and heart? I hear he is susceptible to religious impressions; shall we send our eloquent divines to talk to him, or shall we send on a deputation of mothers and wives, or can we, the conservators of liberty, who have elected him, combine Congress in beseeching him to save the country?"
-- J.M. Forbes
I came across all these and more in reading Shelby Foote's Civil War
.So you see, even today history is repeating itself. All these criticism have been leveled at President Bush is some manner recently.
I'm not here to fight on behalf of the President, but I believe that there is much hysteria on the side of his domestic opponents, many would do well to take a deep breath at times before going off on a vulgar laden tirade. This nation has been through tough times before, and we gotten though alright.
We also should bear in mind that those in power in D.C. and who oppose Bush are also subject to human frailties and as such they too rush to judgements and positions that may not be in our nations best interest.
My opinion is that embracing defeat is so contrary to long term prosperity that I can't accept that position in an elected office holder. It maybe a notion held by a citizen, but I think the congress should have a longer view of history. I expect better than defeat out of leaders.
Conversely, I don't think that our soldiers should be nation building either, which it appears they are doing too much of right now and that's getting them killed.
If only someone would step up with the right message, the message that our military has demonstrated its capabilities superbly and without blemish, that the Iraqi's and Islamic Terrorist have failed to show civility and other modern traits of evolved society.
America may not be able to leave all together though, we would likely need to establish some sort of base there for the foreseeable future, but we ought to be massaging a better message than the one reaching the world now.
We Americans ought to be more upset with the failures of our government to ensure victory than with the failure of our government to assure defeat. . . more on that later.
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