Family Research Council

May 10, 1940: Walking with Destiny

by Robert Morrison

May 10, 2013

Dateline: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

Yes, Sir Winston Churchill was here, too. He actually came to see the Falls at least twice, in 1900 as a rising journalist, and again in 1943, when he was Britain’s wartime Prime Minister. On that latter occasion, he was prodded by pesky reporters who wanted to know if he’d ever seen the Falls before and what he thought of them.

“I have seen them before, before you were born,” he ribbed the self-important young journos, “and I see the principle remains the same.”

The reason everyone wanted to know what Churchill thought is because of what happened on this day – May 10, 1940. It was on that day when, despite all odds, Churchill became Prime Minister of an embattled Great Britain.

On this day, too, Adolph Hitler ended the phony war in the West that many had taken to calling a “Sitzkrieg.” Hitler had left Berlin in the early hours of May 10th. He rode over velvet-smooth tracks in his private train, oddly named “Amerika.” He wanted to be there for the jumping off of his powerful army, his Wehrmacht.

Within weeks of this date, France would collapse. The French army, which had borne the brunt of German wrath for four long years in World War I, losing 1.2 million young men, was undermined by a deadly combination of pro-Communist and pro-Nazi extremists in the French polity.

Churchill was widely distrusted at home and abroad, even when he finally became Prime Minister. His constant calls for preparedness in the House of Commons had led many in Britain, in Europe, and even in the U.S. to call him a bloody old war-monger.

Don’t you realize, he pleaded with his countrymen, that being armed, being prepared for war is the best way to avoid war. They would not listen. Instead, men like Joe Kennedy, were far more popular. Kennedy, who would live to see one son become president and two more sons elected to the Senate, cheerfully pleaded guilty to being an appeaser of Adolf Hitler.

Old Churchill certainly was on this date in 1940. He was 65. He had not expected to live past 40. And he had held virtually every important office in British politics. But the top spot – the premiership – had long eluded him.

Still, when he entered the Prime Minister’s office at Number 10 Downing Street, it was as if “a jolt of electricity” had gone through the old edifice. Senior civil servants were seen running down the corridors of Whitehall, where Britain’s government offices are housed. They were scrambling to meet Winston’s demands for Action this Day.

He would memorably write of this day and hour. It seemed to millions around the world that Britain was doomed, that she was being led by an old used-up man.

He proved them all wrong. As President Kennedy would say in making Churchill an honorary American citizen, “he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”

“I felt as if I were walking with destiny and that all my previous life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.” To his ever-faithful bodyguard, Inspector “Tommy” Thompson, he confessed, “I only pray it’s not too late.”

It wasn’t. Churchill would live to walk over the ruins of the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin, where the man who promised a Thousand-year Reich shot himself after only 12.

When he turned 80, a grateful Parliament voted him 50,000 pounds. He and his family had a wonderful time planning what to do with the money.

The man hated as a bloody warmonger decided to endow a Butterfly Conservancy. My wife and I visited one of these near Niagara Falls today. You cannot imagine a more peaceful place. These beautiful creatures light on your shoulders. They rest on the warm stones beneath your feet. I must take care with my Size 12 boots to avoid harming one of God’s loveliest creations.

Winston eventually turned down the 50,000 pounds. It was enough for him that England remembered him. And that Americans do, too.

He said to the British people: “We are fighting by ourselves alone, but we are not fighting for ourselves alone.” And he was the first to recognize the heroic contributions of the Canadians and other Commonwealth nations to the fight against Nazi tyranny. But they also fought for Americans’ Freedom. And every May 10th, it’s good to remember.

Tredegar Iron Works

by Robert Morrison

May 6, 2013

I had a chance last week, for just a morning, to get away from Washington. For the first time, I saw the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia. Tredegar was the major foundry of the Confederacy. For four long years, this installation supplied the Army of Northern Virginia with artillery, cannonballs, and rifles. As we learned there, the location of the Tredegar Iron Works was a major factor in the Confederates choosing Richmond as their capital.

The events of April 2-4, 1865 are well documented and memorialized at the restored Tredegar Iron Works. There is a statue there—dedicated there in 2003—that features President Lincoln seated on a bench with his son, Tad. It commemorates the wartime visit of just one day of Lincoln to Richmond after the Confederate capital fell to Union forces. (The seated Lincoln is wearing not a bowtie, but a standard necktie. I’ve never seen Lincoln so attired. I’m sure that’s why there were scattered protests when the statue was unveiled.)

The original Mayo Bridge had burned on the night Richmond fell. Today, you can walk out over the James River on a partially restored structure that has an amazing series of quotes from people who were in Richmond during the terrible fire and drunken looting that accompanied the Confederate evacuation of the city.

Today, you can read what Mary Custis Lee, Mary Chesnut, and even Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee had to say on that historic occasion. You can read the exclamations of joy and thanksgiving from ex-slaves as they blessed the Lord and thanked Father Abraham for their liberation.

I was struck by one quote in particular: Written on the planks of the river walkway were these words of Abraham Lincoln to a jubilant crowd of freedmen:

‘My poor friends,’ he said, ‘you are free - free as air. You can cast off the name of slave and trample upon it; it will come to you no more. Liberty is your birthright. God gave it to you as he gave it to others, and it is a sin that you have been deprived of it for so many years…

This past week was the one hundred fiftieth anniversary not of Lincoln’s victorious one day visit to Richmond, but of his deepest dejection. The Sesquicentennial of the Battle of Chancellorsville (May 1-3, 1863) should not pass without notice from us. It was Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory.

Lincoln had issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation the previous September because he was advised to wait until he had a Union victory. Antietam had given him that opportunity. When the time came actually to sign the historic document, however, the Union had just suffered a grievous loss in December under commanding Gen. Ambrose Burnside at Fredericksburg. Wave after wave of bluecoats were mown down on December 13, 1862 by Gen. Lee’s troops secure behind stone defenses on Marye’s Heights. Lee memorably said then: “It is well that war is so terrible lest we grow too fond of it.”

After yet another futile effort—the infamous “Mud March” where his Union Army of the Potomac was bogged down in freezing rains, Burnside withdrew and Lincoln replaced him with Gen. Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker. Hooker had rashly called for a military dictatorship to remove the civilian leadership of the country. When he chose Hooker to lead the demoralized army, President Lincoln sternly told Hooker it was “in spite of this and not because of it that I have given you command.” Lincoln sagely told Hooker that only successful generals get to set up dictatorships. He asked of Hooker only one thing—victory—“and I will risk the dictatorship.”

Lincoln didn’t have to risk it long. Gen. Hooker was leaning on a column outside his Chancellorsville headquarters when a rebel artillery shot hit the column—stunning Hooker. He failed to relinquish command and led the Union to its second straight catastrophe.

Lee’s brilliant victory at Chancellorsville is still studied in military colleges around the world. He put the federals to flight. Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s corps formed the spear point that sowed panic amid the breakfasting Union soldiers, bursting out of the woodsand giving the rebel yell as many of the Yankees were still drinking their coffee.

But Lee’s greatest victory came with his most terrible loss. Stonewall Jackson was hit by friendly fire on the night of May 2, 1863 as he went out to inspect his lines. Jackson’s brother-in-law, Lt. Joseph Morrison, tried to stop the North Carolina troops from firing on their own men, to no avail. When Gen. Lee first heard that Stonewall Jackson was wounded, he knew only that the dour Presbyterian’s left arm was amputated. Even so, he said, “he has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right arm.”

At the Battle of Chancellorsville, one of the Union chaplains, Thomas L. Ambrose, stayed behind with the wounded and dying men of his regiment. In his book While God is Marching On, author Steven E. Woodworth tells us how Ambrose allowed himself to be taken prisoner by Gen. Lee’s forces so that he could pray for his men.

Chaplain Ambrose walked two and a half miles to the headquarters tent of the famous cavalry Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, begging for cornmeal for his wounded. Stuart sent him on to Gen. Lee’s tent.  Lee promised Chaplain Ambrose a wagonload of cornmeal. Knowing some of his boys wouldn’t last that long, the Union chaplain hefted a fifty-pound bag of meal on his back and walked back to his camp. Another Union prisoner of war wrote of him: “He was one of God’s Saints and I regard him as one of the heroes of Chancellorsville.”

The Obama administration recently welcomed a group of atheizers who want to court martial officers and enlisted personnel who share the Gospel with others. We can only imagine the reaction of these brave, faithful Civil War soldiers on both sides to such anti-American notions. This is certainly not the freedom that Abraham Lincoln defended and for which he laid down his life.

Thou Shalt Not—Abandon Israel!

by Robert Morrison

May 3, 2013

South Africa’s parliamentarian, Kenneth Meshoe, rose to contradict former U.S. President Jimmy Carter at an Israeli Embassy event this morning. “Israelis no apartheid regime,” said the deputy who lived decades under the racist policies of his home country. The head of that nation’s African Christian Democrats said “any Christian who doesn’t align with Israel “should be prayed for.”

And that’s what Liberty University Law School Dean Mat Staver did in his remarks. Dean Staver called on Christians to support embattled Israel and then cited the presence of Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin (Ret.-USA), FRC’s Executive Vice President in the crowded Jerusalem Hall.

“Floyd Corkins wanted to kill everyone at FRC,” Staver said of the confessed domestic terrorist who shot FRC’s Building Manager Leo Johnson last August, “and that’s another reason why Christians and Jews must stand together.” Dean Staver reminded his hearers that the Holocaust “didn’t happen overnight. It was the result of an accumulation of policies” all of which tended to place the Jews outside the protection of law and incite resentment of them.

One after another, Christian speakers reasserted their support for Israel. Their words brought to mind a similar gathering I attended in Washington more than twenty years ago. Israel’s Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, was expressing his thanks to American Christians and Jews for their staunch support of his surrounded country. One attendee rose to question him. “Mr. Prime Minister, I run a large public relations firm here in Washington. I give generously to Israel, but I have to say, you are always portrayed in the media as saying no. I know in public relations it always helps to put your case in more positive terms.”

We in the pro-life, pro-family movements are often told the same thing. Don’t say you’re anti-abortion; don’t say you oppose abolishing mothers and fathers in our laws.

Prime Minister Begin stroked his chin and looked out thoughtfully from behind his thick glasses. “I thank you for your support for the Jewish state,” he said in a courtly European manner. “And I will consult my Cabinet colleagues about your helpful suggestion of a more positive way to state our necessary positions.”

Then, with a twinkle in his eye, he added: “But Mr. Public Relations man, I hope you will grant us this much: In our region, there are certain honorable precedents for Thou Shalt Not!”

Indeed there are. Ambassador Michael Oren arrived to a standing ovation. One of my Christian friends had been confused about this learned man who speaks American-accented English. Is he Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. or America’s ambassador to Israel, my friend wanted to know. “Just listen to him,” I said, “he’s pro-America and pro-Israel. He can’t be an Obama appointee!”

The ambassador gave a quick and stunning tour d’horizon of Israel’s perilous position. He most diplomatically avoided saying that this new and deadly danger for Israel was the result of the Obama administration’s policies. He has to work with them.

Iran, he said, could have nuclear weapons and delivery means that could hit New York—or Galveston, Texas. Europe would not be safe. Even worse than North Korea with nukes, Iran’s mullahs are the world’s leading exporter of terror. Syria. No one knows what may happen there. “Jerusalem is to prophesy what Hershey, Pennsylvania is to chocolate. And we just don’t know!” But we may see a vast stash of chemical weapons fall into the hands of Hezbollah in South Lebanon—“Hezbollah, that has 70,000 rockets trained on Israel.”

He spoke of the stalled “peace process.” Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Fatah faction, dares not hold an election because he knows Hamas—which ousted him and his corrupt gang from power in Gaza—would win that election. Abbas is trying to effect reconciliation not withIsrael—but with Hamas. And Hamas, Amb. Oren reminds us, does not simply want to wipe out all Jews in Israel; they want to wipe out all the Jews on earth.

Again, Amb. Oren is too diplomatic to point out that U.S. taxpayers are getting hit for hundreds of millions of dollars to line the pockets of Mahmoud Abbas and his thugs while he makes nice with Hamas.

Egypt is of great concern for Israel. Amb. Oren notes that all their hopes in the Mideast were based on a stable and more democratic Egypt. Well, that was then. Today, Egypt is spinning out of control. Famine is a possibility. The Muslim Brotherhood breathes hostility to Israel and the Jews. He tells us that the Salafists in Egypt are, if anything, even worse. Eilat, Israel’s port city on the Gulf of Aqaba, has been hit by rocket attacks for the first time. Now, Egyptian control over the Sinai—a vast region Israel gave back to Egypt more than thirty years ago—is slipping and the desert area is home to terrorist gangs. A recent Israeli raid into Sinai killed two terrorists—one from Saudi Arabia, the other from Yemen.

A nuclear Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Ambassador doesn’t need any notes. He only has to look at the map.

He didn’t mention the Mediterranean Sea, the one place where Israel seems not to be menaced. Oh, wait. I forgot. The Turks sent a flotilla to arm Hamas in Gaza from the sea in 2010. On his recent trip to Israel, President Obama twisted Prime Minister Netanyahu’s arm to get him to apologize for the loss of life on the Turkish peace ship. [Maybe President Lincoln should have apologized to the Confederacy for attacking the Merrimac, the South’s ironclad blockade breaker?] Israel’s satiric group, Latma, explained the Turkish flotilla better than the Obama’s spokesmen at the State Department have done.

Despite this world of woe, despite dangers as great for the Jewish state as those of May, 1948, and May, 1967, the Ambassador is smiling, upbeat, confident.

This is our 61^st anniversary, he says. “There are more people who speak Hebrew today than speak Danish or Finnish, and we will soon overtake Swedish speakers. We have more Nobel Prize winners than most countries have Olympic gold medalists. We have the second most highly educated population (after Canada) and our Israeli Defense Force is larger than France and Britain combined.”

He concludes with remarkable words of faith. America is the most religiously observant country of any developed nation. And Israel exists because of faith. Israel will not go down. Israel will live, he says, as the audience rises to their feet, cheering.

For Americans, and especially for us as Christians, we have only one ally in the Mideast. And the Israeli people are the only genuine friends America has there. We’re constantly being told that if we would only abandon Israel, we would have peace and friendship with everyone the world over. Then why did Chechens bomb us in Boston?

Abandon Israel? Menachem Begin was right: Thou Shalt Not!

Deep-Six the Rubin “Tear Down” Message

by Robert Morrison

May 2, 2013

In a play on one of the Gipper’s greatest lines, the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin urges us to “Tear Down this Icon.” The highly touted “From the Right” columnist urges conservatives and Republicans to get over the Reagan legacy.

By the recent showings of the party’s presidential nominees, one would think the GOP has certainly gotten over Ronald Reagan. When was the last time the Beltway campaign consultants, those high-priced hirelings, even attempted to win the whole country? Besotted by Red State/Blue State calculations, and armed with their white boards, the big domes never have come close to Reagan’s generous inclusiveness. Reagan thought of all the states as Red, White & Blue. He wanted to win them all, and twice nearly did.

Can anyone seriously claim that Bush, McCain, or Romney ran Reagan-style campaigns? Let’s start with the way the nominees got their gold rings. Ronald Reagan refused to attack his fellow Republicans. He invoked the Eleventh Commandment. What? Yes, he said: “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.” No one had ever heard of that before. No one has heard of it since.

But Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment worked brilliantly. By not attacking his GOP rivals, he could genially ignore them. Thus, their backers never got mad at Reagan. And he never had to get into that tit-for-tat ugliness that independent voters abhor. Even more ingenious: By not getting into the gutter with his Republican opponents, Reagan let millions of Democrats overlook the fact that he was a Republican.

By these methods, Reagan won 96% of Republicans and 24% of Democrats. The Reagan Democrats have been left without a political home since he left the scene. Where are the Dole/Bush/McCain/Romney Democrats? There are none.

For that matter, where are the Dole/Bush/McCain/Romney Republicans? Not one of those candidates who sought national office in the Republican Party in 2008 or 2012 wanted to claim the mantle of any of recent Republican nominees. They were all Reagan wannabes. Not one was a Reagan might-a-been.

It’s certainly reasonable for Rubin to suggest we examine the Republican performance and offer ideas for improvement. One nice thing we can say for the McCain and Romney campaigns—they left plenty of room for improvement.

Rubin cites Reince Priebus, who recently attracted notice by conducting an “autopsy” on his own shaky tenure:

“We’re winning everything imaginable in off-years,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told me recently. “The governors are still going strong. We’re winning the war in issue-driven races.” However, he conceded that Republicans have lost their ability to connect with average Americans in the wider electorate: “We are not relating to people at an emotional level.”

So, Jennifer Rubin’s advice to us would be ditch the one great Republican in our lifetime who never failed to relate to people at an emotional level? What Chairman Priebus is saying in this tribute to the Republicans’ off-year performance is that his party is doing fine so long as not too many people show up to vote.

Republican leaders today behave, in Lincoln’s fine phrase, “like a duck hit on the head.” They find it incomprehensible that voters could shun a wonderful candidate who regarded 47% of Americans as irretrievable slackers, who thought of himself as “severely conservative,” and who wanted to involve us in Syriaas soon as he could figure out “who are friends are there.” (Hint, Governor: our only friends in Syria are the Christians. You weren’t thinking of arming them were you?)

Ronald Reagan gained some fame by speaking of an Evil Empire. But he never said it was Russia. He let Pravda howl in rage, thereby admitting it. In speaking truth fearlessly, Reagan inspired those in the Gulag and helped mightily to loosen the shackles of hundreds of millions in the Captive Nations.

Mitt Romney stumbled badly by naming Russia as “our number one strategic enemy.” Thus, he showed himself not a credible alternative to the failed policies of Barack Obama. Chris Matthews called the Republicans the “Daddy Party,” but today’s post-Reagan Republicans cannot convince a majority of Americans that Father Knows Best.

Thanks to Ronald Reagan, foreign policy was the Republicans’ strong suit for a generation. And Reagan brought us victory in the Cold War without invading any Communist country. Or at least, no country larger than that dot-on-the—map, Grenada. And that was over in a blink.

The GOP has yet to live down George W. Bush’s failed attempt to bring democracy to Muslim-majority countries where 84% of the people think anyone who leaves Islam should be murdered. Such countries are not democracies. Nor was Germany a democracy when Germans voted 89% to make Hitler their Fuhrer. Purple fingers can vote, but they can also slit throats and place bombs in churches.

There’s a lot to learn from Ronald Reagan. His common-sense conservatism and his uncommon ability to touch the hearts of the American people are nothing to be ashamed of. They are something to strive for.

Millions of our fellow Americans remember him with love and respect. So do their kids. Pollsters tell us even today, he would beat Obama 58% to 42% in an imaginary match-up.

We don’t need to idolize Ronald Reagan, or make an icon of him. But, it wouldn’t hurt to study how he built his winning coalition.

Today in History: Washington and Hitler

by Nathan Oppman

April 30, 2013

On this day in 1789, George Washington became the first president under the Constitution of the United States of America. A great man in both stature and character, who could have been king but relinquished his command to Congress. He was then elected to the nation’s highest office after the ratification of the Constitution. It reminds me of the Scriptural phrase “he who humbles himself will be exalted.” It is not a coincidence that one of our most revered national heroes gave up a chance at a great power. It is reported that King George III stated when he heard Washington would relinquish his command and return to his farm, “If he does that he will be the greatest man in the world.” High praise from the monarch of one of the world’s leading powers! Not only did Washington achieve great fame and popularity in his own day, he also set a precedent for a peaceful transition of power and for a two term limit on presidential power both of which are followed to this day. Washington’s country has endured longer under one Constitution and form of government than any other today.

Another leader cemented his place in history on this day in 1945, Adolf Hitler. In a bunker in Germany, the man who would have ruled the world and began a thousand-year Reich died in a most ignominious way—suicide. A man who exalted himself and his race above others and brutally murdered all who stood in his way was brought low. The supreme leader of one of the greatest military machines the world has ever seen lost all of his power in just a few years. It sent his country into a time of division and turmoil. The thousand-year Reich became a ruin in a few short years. What a contrast with the great George Washington.

The man who led a raggedy band of colonials against the greatest military in the world and won handed over his authority and rode home. And in that moment became one of the great men of antiquity. A man who led the mightiest military machine in the world and lifted himself up in every way was defeated and consigned the historical trash heap of world despots. The lessons to be learned from these men are many. Our politicians would be wise today to consider what a true leader does. A true leader knows when to stand and fight against all odds, like Washington at Valley Forge, and a true leader does not see himself as great but sees himself as a servant of something greater. An evil leader only sees the present and is fearful of preserving his reputation and power. In his desire to hold on, he soon finds power and fame are fleeting. Washington walked away from everything and became a legend. Hitler grabbed for everything and became a monster.

Another great man once said, “A man is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” In the city that bears our first President’s namesake I hope there are some great men left.

Reagan 58% Obama 42%

by Robert Morrison

April 24, 2013

Producers of a forthcoming National Geographic TV special polled Americans, today’s Americans, in one of those fantasy fights that are so popular with boxing fans. This time, though, the pollsters asked Americans whom they would vote for in a matchup between Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.

The poll produced some stunning results: Reagan would win another landslide, defeating Obama 58% to 42%. Could that be accurate? Would President Obama, with all his famous political skills, really only outpoll the famously inept Walter “Fritz” Mondale by a single point? Recall, Reagan bested Mondale in 1984 by 59% to 41%.

What’s the purpose of such fanciful exercises? It is not a pointless diversion into wishful thinking. It’s a key indicator. It tells us something very important about our fellow citizens.

Americans did respond to clear leadership, to a strong figure who had a strong message. Here’s a little thought experiment: It’s only been one year. Try to recall a single line of Mitt Romney’s that was not a gaffe much exploited by the liberal media. In all seriousness, can we remember a single memorable phrase? I cannot.

I was on the road last year on the FRC/Heritage Foundation Values Voters Bus for nearly six months. By law, I could not endorse any candidates. I found it wiser not to mention any. But that did not prevent anyone from talking up their favorite candidate to me.

I remember stopping at the Minnesota Republican State Convention in St. Cloud. It’s a beautiful state, especially in springtime. We were at the convention center early to set up. Mitt Romney had already wrapped up the GOP nomination by that time. But there were no bumper stickers, no buttons, no posters in evidence for Mitt. I talked to a lot of delegates and backers of various candidates for the U.S. Senate and the House. Not one of these political activists mentioned Gov. Romney.

I remember thinking at the time: this could spell trouble for Romney. I was aware that some parties had elected unloved candidates to the presidency. Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, none of these men exuded warmth or elicited the love and esteem of their supporters. But they won nonetheless. What I had never seen in a winning campaign in more than forty years was a winning candidate who was not even mentioned by his own grassroots.

The fact that such a stunning percentage of Americans today say they would vote for Ronald Reagan in a modern election should be a source of greatest encouragement to us. It shows that a strong leader who lays out a clear program could win. Could have won.

In the aftermath of last November, the usual talking heads ran to the cable shows with their white boards and tried to prove that they hadn’t miscalculated. There was just an entirely different electorate out there. Demographics! Even Reagan couldn’t have won in this forbidding environment, they claimed.

Those political consultants—which is our twenty-first century title for flim-flam men, card sharps, and Ponzi schemers—were trying to explain away their disastrous strategizing, their deeply flawed campaign advice. Have you noticed that they are still making the rounds on TV and on talk radio, these architects of failure?

The first fatal flaw in their schemes is red state/blue state. The theory behind red state/blue state says you turn the Electoral College upside down and shoot for 270 Electoral Votes. You identify the states absolutely required to achieve this bare minimum for election. And you squeeze those states like lemons to get every last drop of voting power out of them.

A truly terrible idea, red state/blue state dangerously divides the nation. Barack Obama’s campaign in Virginia in 2008 had 84 local headquarters, staffed largely by volunteers. McCain’s campaign that year in Virginia had one national headquarters and one state campaign office—both located in the same Northern Virginia office building and both equally chaotic. Not surprisingly, Barack Obama became the first Democrat since LBJ in 1964 to carry the Old Dominion. And he did it again in 2012.

Last month, I attended the March for Marriage on the Mall. Four hundred Korean-Americans came to the event. They had all come from one church in Flushing, Queens.

That’s in New York State. The architects of failure haven’t put an ad on TV for a Republican in New York for decades. New York is not a part of the bare minimum number of 270 Electoral Votes they need for their grand strategy. So they write off the Empire State.

These architects abandoned California, too, and New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Washington and Oregon. By micro-targeting their appeals to specific groups—right to lifers, gun owners, home schoolers, NASCAR fans, etc., they lost the ability to move the country.

I still remember lines from Reagan’s 1980 campaign, and not just because I took part in it. “Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.

And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his job.” It was a light jab, not mean at all.

Jimmy Carter was so weak, he could be knocked over with a feather. Best of all, Ronald Reagan said America should be “a shining city on a hill.”

What today’s poll shows us in the fictional contest between Reagan and Obama is that the American people remember that shining city on a hill. Now, all we need is the leader to take us there.

Cherry Blossoming

by Robert Morrison

April 23, 2013

I rarely disagree with my bride of 413 months. Not more than two or three times a week, I’m sure. So it was only under my breath that I questioned her idea of driving into Washington, D.C. recently to see the Cherry Blossoms. The Cherry Blossoms attract visitors from all over the world to our beautiful capital city. Now, there are cherry blossoms on the Yard of the Naval Academy, and we live in Annapolis, so why the push to go to Washington? Well, because Washington’s Cherry Blossoms are so very beautiful, surrounding the Tidal Basin and framing the Jefferson Memorial, as they do.

They were a gift a hundred years ago from the people of Japan. Part of the allure of the Cherry Blossoms, certainly, is their evanescence. They last but a few days. If we have a windstorm, a hailstorm, even a heavy rain, the Cherry Blossoms can be gone in a flash.

Of course, the fact that they are here such a brief moment in time is what draws the tourists from around the country and around the world.

My point, exactly. Any other time, my beloved is hard to draw into Washington. We live only thirty-two miles away, but I say it’s like scraping barnacles off a ship’s hull to get that dear lady into the District.

So which day, of all days in the year, might she choose for a family excursion into the Capital? The peak day of the Cherry Blossoms! It was the very day when much of the rest of the world wants to see them, too!

I rode in the van with my son-in-law and the grandchildren, as we led my wife and daughter in a second car. I muttered “This day of all days!” He has grown used to these expressions of patience and forbearance from me. After all, he’s family now.

As we came up on Capitol Hill, however, my smile through gritted teeth turned into something more genuine.

“What’s that big round thing, GranDad” our four year-old grandson asks. “Why, it’s the Capitol of the United States; it’s where Congress meets to make our laws.” For once, I forget about Obamacare and a lot of the other bad things happening under that Dome. I point out the lady standing on top. That’s the Statue of Freedom.”

“Oh, GranDad, what’s that big pencil,” he wants to know.

That’s the Washington Monument, I tell him. “Do you work in there,” he asks.

I cannot tell a lie. No, but I’ll take you to the building where I do work.

He and his twin sisters are taking it all in.

Even though we have to drive into Virginia to come around the Lincoln Memorial and get in line to see the Cherry Blossoms, I am by this time in a much better frame of mind.

Maybe the Missus idea wasn’t such a bad one, after all.

And yes, those thirty-six columns on the Big White Box are for all the states we had when President Lincoln lived here. No, he didn’t live in the Big White Box. But I’ll show you the house where he did live.

We slowly make the circuit of the Tidal Basin, in line with approximately 1 in 7 of the seven billion others on Earth.

Parking finally at my office, we dash across the street for a picnic in the Atrium of the National Portrait Gallery. Now, the grandchildren can be unstrapped from their car seats. They were amazingly content to see the Cherry Blossoms and all the monuments. Shouldn’t I be?

They find that stone rectangle on the floor of Atrium, the one with 1/8 inch of water constantly flowing over it. It seems to have been created for no other purpose than for children to splash in it. And they don’t even get other diners wet.

Splish, splash.. Joining them on the rectangle is a boy of about eight. He runs through the water. He wears a yarmulke. This boy has a serious birth defect, but his bearded young dad is teaching him how to take photographs with one finger.

I am thinking how grateful I should be to have witnessed such tender scenes. I was taught the shechechanu, a Hebrew prayer for such moments.

Blessed be Thou, O L_rd, Master of the Universe, that Thou hast preserved us in life to savor this experience for the first time.

And I also thank God for my wife. She has this maddening quality: Even when she’s wrong, she’s right!

But if not…

by Robert Morrison

April 19, 2013

Columnist George F. Will once wrote about the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France in 1940. The rapid advance of Hitler’s Panzer divisions, supported by the terrifying new air weapon of his air force, the Luftwaffe, was crushing French and British opposition. The Germans had broken through on May 10^th, the same day that in London Winston Churchill had become Prime Minister. Churchill knew he would have to evacuate his surrounded troops from the embattled city of Dunkirk, one of the French Channel ports. He also knew that he would have to order some of his soldiers in Calais, another Channel port, to fight to the death to cover the BEF retreat.

We now know, of course, that Churchill and his War Cabinet had hoped to get as many as 100,000 troops rescued from the beaches and brought home. So desperate was their situation that they thought that might be the largest number they could hope for. Those 100,000 soldiers would have to abandon all their tanks, trucks, and artillery in France. Even their rifles. At home in England, elderly men of the all-volunteer Home Guard were drilling on village squares with only broomsticks in place of rifles on their shoulders.

George Will wrote of these desperate days in a column some years ago. He wrote not of the 336,000 troops of the BEF and their Free French and Polish allies who were eventually brought off from Dunkirk. This was hailed by Churchill as “a miracle of deliverance.”

Columnist Will wrote instead of some of those who guarded the rear of the BEF, those brave warriors French and British who made it possible for the great host—that third of a million—to be rescued. One of the commanders of that doomed division sent a short message back to Whitehall, in London. The War Cabinet read this three-word transmission.

BUT IF NOT

In those biblically literate days, as they faced the prospect of invasion and enslavement, the British at home were stirred as they had never been stirred in the two thousand-year history of their island home. They instantly recognized those three words. They were spoken by the three young Israelites in the Book of Daniel. The full quote follows the description of the fiery furnace into which King Nebuchadnezzar would throw the young men if they refused to bow down to his Golden Image:

“But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods nor the golden image that thou hast set up.” [Daniel 3:18]

The three-word message was all that these brave men could send to their commanders. Many of those defenders of the Dunkirk evacuation prayed, no doubt, that God would deliver them. But if not, they were saying, they would not bow down to Hitler’s New Order in Europe. Thousands of those who were not killed were captured and would spend the war in Nazi captivity, where not a few of them died.

Dr. James Dobson encourages us to read Five Days in London, by John Lukacs. That book tells the story of Britain in her hour of maximum danger. I read that short volume every spring. And Dr. Dobson likes to remind us of the National Day of Prayer that was specially called for by the British government as their trapped men gathered on those beaches.

Winston Churchill, it is true, was impatient, oppressed by many “hard and heavy tidings” from France. He really didn’t want to break away to attend the Prayer Vigil at Westminster Abbey. But he was not yet secure in his own political position. He had clashed with his Foreign Minister, Lord Halifax. Halifax was a famous Anglican churchman. Halifax pressed Churchill for two things—a positive answer to “peace feelers” from Italy’s Fascist dictator, Mussolini, and a National Day of Prayer.

Churchill had to give Halifax—whom he called that Holy Fox—something. Oh, alright then, a National Day of Prayer. But the Prime Minister sent ahead word that he would only attend for 10-30 minutes. A vicar welcomed him and said he would so like to tell the faithful that their Prime Minister was a pillar of the Anglican Church, like Lord Halifax. Churchill puckishly replied: “You may say I am a flying buttress. I support the church, but from outside.”

Although Churchill had little faith in the efficacy of prayer, he may have had a mustard seed. The English Channel, that 23-mile anti-tank ditch, was usually stormy, even in May. During the Dunkirk evacuation, the Channel was, as many of the escaping soldiers testified “as calm as a millpond.” German U-boats were kept at bay. And Stukas dive bombing the soldiers hunkered down on the beach found many of their bombs’ explosions were muffled by the sand and surf.

Today, we are not being asked to stand up to Hitler. And I do not charge our adversaries with being Nazis. I do not hate them. But this much should be clear: The end of marriage equals the end of liberty. They cannot bring about this unnatural change without crushing freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of religion. The end of liberty equals the end of America. The stakes are that high.

We are indeed being asked to bow down to a golden image. It is President Obama’s fundamental transformation of the American Republic. And the avatar of that transformation is “Julia,” the White House’s fictional everywoman. Her entire life is lived in dependence upon the government. The only man in Julia’s life is Barack Obama.

George Will has long since given up. He says the opponents of unmarriage are literally dying off. That word did not reach the young French who attended our March for Marriage. Or the 400 young Korean-Americans who rode through the night by bus from Flushing, Queens to stand for marriage. Nor has it reached the young people of MarriageGeneration.org

I am younger, though not by much, than George Will. I named the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 because I wanted people to learn that marriage itself was under attack. I will not give in. I expect we will win, Mr. Will. But if not…

Margaret Thatcher: An Inspiration to Women

by Krystle Gabele

April 10, 2013

With the recent news of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s death, we are mourning the loss of a great leader, whose legacy will rest on her relentless strength. She was truly the Iron Lady.

While I didn’t agree with some of her stances, she was an inspiration to women who sought to climb the corporate ladder, as well as those seeking to serve in a public office. I can think of few (outside my Mother and Great-Grandmother) who better exemplifies what is to be strong and lead a moral life. For both the non-feminist and feminist alike, she paved the way by showing that hard work is essential to success.

However, Thatcher’s legacy has been downtrodden by feminists, the ones who should be admiring her for being in a role of leadership and shattering the so-called “glass ceiling.” Yes, Thatcher may have made some bad policy decisions over time, just as all of us have made some erroneous choices.

Shouldn’t we be looking back on Thatcher’s ascendancy to power as something all females should admire and seek out, if it is their calling? Rest in peace, Margaret Thatcher! Your legacy has proven that with a hard work ethic and strength that women can do anything.

Lady Thatcher: “The Lady’s Not for Turning”

by Robert Morrison

April 9, 2013

It was perhaps her most famous speech. She had beenBritain’s first female Prime Minister. She had been in residence at No. 10 Downing Street for barely fourteen months. The economy did not look bright. As disorder spread and riots greeted her every move at liberalization and deregulation of the economy, senior leaders of the Conservative Party grew worried.

They began to urge a U-turn in policy. Former Prime Minister Edward Heath, a recognized leader of party moderates—those who were then called Tory “Wets”—led the effort to turn Mrs. Thatcher around. She faced down the old bulls of her party at a dramatic conference in October 1980.

We Americans were absorbed with our own presidential election then. The hapless Jimmy Carter was thrashing about, desperate to avoid the voters’ judgment on his singularly failed administration.

In Britain, though, the iron will of Mrs. Thatcher was being demonstrated. She told the nervous party leaders:

If our people feel that they are part of a great nation and they are prepared to will the means to keep it great, a great nation we shall be, and shall remain. So, what can stop us from achieving this? What then stands in our way? The prospect of another winter of discontent? I suppose it might.

But I prefer to believe that certain lessons have been learnt from experience, that we are coming, slowly, painfully, to an autumn of understanding. And I hope that it will be followed by a winter of common sense. If it is not, we shall not be—diverted from our course.

To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the ‘U-turn’, I have only one thing to say: “You turn [U-turn] if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.” I say that not only to you but to our friends overseas and also to those who are not our friends.

“The lady’s not for turning” was a pun on the popular British play, “The Lady’s not for burning.” It was an unusual phrase and it caught on. It signaled the difference between this courageous woman and the timorous men.

Those Wets would always run at the first sign of trouble. Knowing they had weak-kneed men to deal with at Number 10 Downing Street had empowered dangerous Communist-led union bosses. Those bosses knew that if they rioted, banged some heads, and burned a few police cars, the Wets would give way. Not Mrs. Thatcher.

What was seen in Britain in 1980 was practically a dress rehearsal for what President Ronald Reagan would face in America two years later. As the U.S. economy in 1982 struggled, the media howled that Reaganomics was to blame. He should never have given working families and businesses all those tax cuts in 1981. He should never have tried to deregulate the economy. He should content himself—as Nixon and Ford had contented themselves—with wage and price controls or with silly lapel buttons that said:WIN—Whip Inflation Now.

Just in time to save Mrs. Thatcher’s Prime Ministership, the Argentine military junta in 1982 invaded the British Falkland Islands. Margaret Thatcher rallied the nation and dispatched a war fleet to the South Atlantic. No sooner had the fleet sailed than one junior Cabinet minister, a Wet, suggested offering peace terms to the Argentine dictators.

Mrs. Thatcher’s response was said to be “thermonuclear” and we have not heard that young Wet’s name since. The British won the Falklands War in a walkover. When a journalist asked a tough war veteran why make such a fuss over a few thousand British sheep herders on remote rocky crags, the Royal Navy Chief Petty Officer replied: “It’s so we can walk around in the world with our heads up.”

Under the British system, the Prime Minister can ask the Sovereign to dissolve Parliament and call for new elections. Mrs. Thatcher took advantage of her sky-high ratings to ask for an electoral mandate from the voters. She got it—and the rebounding economy in her second term solidified her leadership.

Ronald Reagan, too, was coming off a lightning military victory when he again faced the voters. He had invaded tiny Grenada in 1983 when the Caribbean island nation’s Marxist Prime Minister was assassinated by even more extreme, Cuban-directed Communists. Reagan liberated Grenada and, in so doing, gave dramatic proof the Carter policies that gave us a hollowed-out military, humiliation abroad, and a nation mired in “malaise” were past.

Soon, the U.S.economy, too, took off, helped in no small measure by increased trade with a rebounding United Kingdom. It was said Mrs. Thatcher put the “Great” back in Great Britain.

Facing re-election, President Reagan took his improved prospects in good nature. He winked as the recovery gathered steam and said: “I notice they don’t call it Reaganomics any more.” Asked by a friend what to wear to a Halloween party, he said: “Just put egg on your face and go as a liberal economist.”

Both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher dared to envision a world without Communism. Mrs. Thatcher never tired of pointing out that while you may not like her policies, you were free to vote her out. No one in Eastern Europe, walled in and held back by barbed wire and armed guards, had that opportunity.

President Reagan was the first American leader to address the British House of Commons. He boldly told his audience, even the Tory Wets, even the leftwing Labourites, that Communism “was destined for the ash heap of history.”

A recent Pew poll of Americans showed that young people here prefer socialism to capitalism by a margin of 48% to 46%. This poll is alarming some of their elders. We should not panic over such skewed questions and confused poll results. The fact is the term “capitalism” is Karl Marx’s own pejorative word for free enterprise.

Abraham Lincoln, Marx’s contemporary, never campaigned for capitalism. Instead, he spoke eloquently of “the right to rise.” And as for socialism, Mrs. Thatcher pointed to its inherent flaw: “Pretty soon, you run out of other peoples’ money.”

The Wets eventually ganged up and turned out Mrs. Thatcher. Their names are already forgotten. Their policies will not be emulated. To this day, the names of Thatcher and Reagan are paired as good and great leaders in tumultuous times. Thank God for them.