Fascinating Robert Novak editorial

You'll enjoy reading this editorial by Robert Novak. (Correction: Michael Novak - thanks to reader "rls") He dissects Zell Miller's speech at the RNC, revealing elements I was not aware of - especially the Baptist preacher angle. More than anything, however, he reveals how tragically wrong the Democratic party has been since Vietnam. This theme keeps reoccurring throughout many recent editorials, and I think there's a great deal of truth to it. America derailed during Vietnam, and we've been lost ever since. This explains why we could lose 243 Marines in Beirut and do nothing - why we wrung our hands when good men died in Somalia - why we sat idly by while 17 died on the USS Cole - why it took the deaths of civilians for us to focus on the task at hand.

There is a reason that people from every nation in the world are drawn to our shores. It's not material wealth, and it's not the awesome beauty of our land. The greatness of America is that people from all nations, from every ethnic background, from many diverse religions, live together in peace and settle our differences in court and at the ballot box instead of with the gun. Few other nations in the world can boast of this. When the chips are down and America is threatened, we put aside what differences we have and join together to fight for freedom. We will sacrifice our lives and our fortunes, if we have to, to save what remains the greatest place on earth because we have all come from places where death and tyranny were commonplace, were freedom was just a fantasy, where evil men ruled with iron fists and hope for the future did not exist.

Perhaps now is the time to right the ship of state and return America to the greatness she once knew, when the greatest generation freed the world from tyranny and that same world cheered when America came to the rescue.