Lincoln of course was surrounded throughout the Civil War by critics whose venom was the equal of the far reaches of the nutterspehere. To his enemies in the Confederacy he was evil personified, and to his political opponents at home, especially the Copperheads, he was a fool and a dangerous incompetent. But even the horrors of the war which he saw often and at first hand did not blur his vision of what had to be done, a vision far more focused and far sighted than that of his enemies combined.
So Lincoln called for resolve and he insisted on victory.
Another speech came to mind, a memory triggered by Bush’s single paragraph. When President Reagan gave a farewell address to the nation on January 11, 1989, he paused to recall “that because we are a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way.” He continued:
"But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours. And something else we learned: Once you begin a great movement, there’s no telling where it will end. We meant to change a nation, and instead we changed a world.”
First principles plus the resolve to defend them are the mark of great presidents, and it has always been so in the history of the country. President Bush extended a variety of invitations last night to the new majorities in the Senate and the House, and only the most optimistic of sorts can imagine much coming from them as the Democrats have evidenced no interest in ending their effort to reverse the judgment on Bush which history will inevitably bestow. With the possible exception of an immigration reform bill, it will be a year of confrontation and definition in preparation for a presidential election of almost incalculable stakes.
President Bush is resolved to deliver the country to his successor much safer than the one that was delivered to him, a safety which flows from clear-eyed realism about threats and the courage to act upon them.
It will be interesting to see if the combination of General Petraeus’ clear and emphatic testimony at his confirmation hearing and the president’s steady insistence on victory will reverse the flow towards neoappeasement in the Senate. That may be too much to expect of politics in these divided times, but the good news is that the president is not for turning.