Saturday, September 4, 2010

William Kristol on Beck, Palin... and Obama.

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William Kristol has authored the editorial for The Weekly Standard's September 13 edition. His subject is the August 28 Restoring Honor rally, which was about God and country. While event organizer Glenn Beck concentrated on God, his marquee speaker Sarah Palin focused on country:
Beck placed his hopes for America’s future on moral reform, even a religious awakening. What the rally meant to Beck was that “America today begins to turn back to God. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness.” Beck’s speech was an urgent appeal to Americans to look into themselves and commit to doing better.

Palin joined Beck in claiming to want to look beyond ordinary politics. She emphasized that she had been asked to speak not as a politician, but as “something more—something much more. I’ve been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier, and I am proud of that distinction.” Palin went beyond politics to patriotism. She didn’t picture Americans as wandering in darkness. Rather, she began by asking, “Are you not so proud to be an American?”

Now Palin did say she was humbled—but less by her failures in the eyes of God than by the patriotic surroundings and commitments of her audience: “It is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots.” And she devoted most of her remarks to praise for the finest of our patriots, our men and women in uniform who have been willing “to sacrifice, to restrain evil, to protect God-given liberty, to sacrifice all in defense of our country.”

Indeed, Palin’s wish to honor that service led her to acknowledge some tension with the theme of the rally, selected by Beck: “We honor those who served something greater than self and made the ultimate sacrifice, as well as those who served and did come home forever changed by the battlefield. Though this rally is about ‘restoring honor,’ for these men and women honor was never lost. If you look for the virtues that have sustained our country, you will find them in those who wear the uniform, who take the oath, who pay the price for our freedom.”

So Beck wants to restore honor. Palin thinks honor was never lost. There’s a tension between the rally’s twin messages: “We’re a great country” and “We’re wandering in the darkness.” But each side would acknowledge an element of truth in the other’s formulation. Beck’s call for a religious awakening has a patriotic theme and intention—it was Beck, after all, who arranged that proceeds from the gathering were to go to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. And Palin’s patriotism is religion-friendly (e.g., “God-given liberty”). The two make common cause against a liberalism that is often made nervous by religion and uncomfortable by patriotism.
Read Kristol's editorial unabridged at TWS.

- JP

3 comments:

  1. The man is dense sometimes. She's saying that honor was never lost for the men and women in uniform, duh.

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  2. What a pathetic attempt on the part of Bill Kristol to score points by claiming there was tension at the rally or that the messages from Sarah and Glenn were somehow at odds. That's just dishonest. Glenn has repeatedly stated that the one place we still have honor in America is in our military and that we need to restore that honor to the general population and our civic leaders. My estimation of Bill Kristol has just gone down another notch.

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  3. Somehow I don't read the same point. I wasn't at the rally. But I feel that Kristol was only pointing out the different tracks that Beck and Sarah took. I infer from the piece that Beck and Palin don't have tension, but that the topics are often a point of tension. Not every honorable American is religious. Not every religious person acts honorably. But both could and should if we plan to grow as a nation. If you read Kristol's final paragraph he sets his point not at the tension but at the hope that the combined ideas they brought have the potential to become the most honorable wave in American history. To me Kristol was pointing out something that is accurate to the American dialogue not creating a chasm.

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