Big Frick Dot Com

If I ruled the world, every day would be the first day of spring
Every heart would have a new song to sing
And we’d sing of the joy every morning would bring

If I ruled the world, every man would be as free as a bird
Every voice would be a voice to be heard
Take my word, we would treasure each day that occurred

My world would be a beautiful place
Where we would weave such wonderful dreams
My world would have a smile on its face
Like the man in the moon has when the moon beams

If I ruled the world, every man would say the world was his friend
There’d be happiness that no man could end
No my friend, not if I ruled the world

Every head would be held up high
There’d be sunshine in everyone’s sky
If the day ever dawned when I ruled the world.

While this may sound very much like a Barack Obama campaign speech, it is of course the lyrics to the popular song “If I Ruled the World” by Leslie Bricusse and Cyril Ornadel from the play Pickwick. The euphoric message is both heartwarming and encouraging. It inspires faith in brighter days to come and in the one who will make it all happen. The problem in real life comes when the campaign is over and the guy who made the promises really does rule the world. At that point folks tend to expect a little more than a new set of promises. Such is the case of the battling speeches given by Barack Obama and Dick Cheney.

Cheney’s speech was direct and fact laden. Obama’s speech, as always, was lyrical in its choice of words and dramatic in its presentation against the backdrop of the U.S. Constitution, but when it was over created more questions than it answered. Cheney gave the speech of a man who has succeeded in his mission and has no further political ambitions to cloud his connotation. Obama gave the speech of a consummate campaigner not a president. The two speeches emphasized the stark contrasts in mindsets between someone who has spent a lifetime in service to the protection of the United States and a liberal community activist who believes wishing will make it so. It detailed the harsh realities of someone who has fought against those whose sole mission in life is to kill Americans and bring down the Great Satan United States and someone who is a political obfuscation, who contemplates the image on each piece of the puzzle independently without seeing how they all fit together.

I don’t know if the Obama administration had an advanced copy of Cheney’s text but they rushed the president to the podium days earlier than originally planned to try to mollify the impact of Cheney’s comments. It was obvious that the Obama administration had heard the calls from the liberal left to step away from what is now being called the “Bush/Obama” policy on national security.

Obama opened his comments with the same whiney lament that he has used repeatedly over the past several months. “There is no shortage of work to be done, or responsibilities to bear” he said, almost as if he was surprised by the degree of responsibility the office of president holds and trying to hide the fact that he is in way over his head and just looking to take a breath. “It’s like drinking from a fire hose” Karl Rove counseled prior to Obama taking office. But I doubt BHO would ever actually listen to Karl Rove.

“We know that al Qaeda is actively planning to attack us again. We know that this threat will be with us for a long time, and that we must use all the elements of our power to defeat it” Obama said, sounding as if he was in tune with the real threat against us. He then went on to say “Already we have taken steps to achieve that goal. For the first time since 2002, we are providing the necessary resources and strategic direction to take the fight to the extremists who attacked us on 9/11 in Afghanistan and Pakistan” proving once again that no topic is too important to politicize and intentionally misrepresent.

In his speech Dick Cheney said “Our administration always faced its share of criticism, and from some quarters it was always intense. That was especially so in the later years of our term, when the dangers were as real as ever, but the sense of general alarm after 9/11 was a fading memory. Part of our responsibility, as we saw it, was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America…and not to let 9/11 become the prelude to something much bigger and far worse.” Cheney went on to describe the numerous attacks carried out against Americans and American interests all over the globe and culminating in the attack on 9/11. He explained that this was not just one incident and one well defined and contained enemy. “9/11 caused everyone to take a serious look at threats that had been gathering for a while, and enemies whose plans were getting bolder and more sophisticated” said Cheney. He went on to caution the foolishness of tunnel vision and directing attention to a single point and dealing with it like a law enforcement case “with everything handled after the fact….crime scene, arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed.”

Obama went on to say that he has launched an effort to secure all loose nuclear materials within the next 4 years, has increased protections at our borders, is increasing preparedness for future attacks(and then downplayed that by including preparedness for natural disasters as well) and is building new partnerships around the world to defeat al Qaeda. “We have renewed American diplomacy so that we can once again have strength and standing and truly lead the world”. What he did not explain were any of the actual measures taken or plans proposed or any tangible results. He also failed to explain how diplomacy will strengthen or improve our national security. In his blatant criticism of the Bush administration for including Iraq as a threat rather than focusing solely on Afghanistan he conveniently forgot that every intelligence agency in the world reported that Iraq was working on developing weapons of mass destruction and that they were in fact dealing with extreme terrorist factions, if not directly involved in 9/11, certainly capable of carrying out their own similarly deadly attacks.

Obama went on to call attention to his surroundings by saying “ I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values. The documents we hold in this very hall – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights – are not simply words written onto aging parchment. They are the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality and dignity in the world. I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents……”

I agree with the president’s ebullient description of our founding charters, but I must add that none of these hallowed documents is a suicide pact. They are indeed the foundation of liberty and justice for all who seek it but they are not and were never meant to be a pacifistic protection for those who would destroy their significance.

And by the way, the life of every American standing in that hall, and for that matter anywhere in the world, was made possible not only by those documents but by the brave men and women who gave their all to defend it. We are not free because some people developed a set of ideals and signed a piece of paper, we are free because some of America’s finest chose sacrifice and service to their country defending it.

Throughout our history Americans have proven their mettle. The question is, what is this president prepared to do.

More tomorrow.