While “gone fishing” I visited the book store. I was in Bernie Sanders country so you can imagine the titles on display in the Political Science section. I chose one at random, A Long Time Coming by Evan Thomas of Newsweek Magazine. It was thin with a hard cover. Thin books are always inviting. The title aroused my curiosity. Just what was it that the author thought was a long time coming?
There was no need to read beyond the first chapter to find the answer. This was a contemporary book occasioned by the election of Barack Obama. One could almost hear the gentle sound of air wafting from the lungs of Mr Thomas of Newsweek Magazine as he heaved a great sigh of relief and brought the news, finally “the undoing of the work of Nixon, Reagan and the Bush years” has begun. So this is what was a long time coming.
Undoing Nixon, Reagan and Bush? Pray tell, what did Nixon do that must now be undone? Reagan faced up to the Soviet Union and was instrumental in bringing down the Berlin wall. At home, his administration reversed spiraling inflation. Are these to be undone? And Bush? He spent like a Democrat and started a war. About the only thing these presidents have in common is they were all elected on the Republican ticket.
A sentence or two later in the book we find Thomas sees redemption at hand for the United States in that “a nation whose Constitution has enshrined slavery has elected a black man” to the Presidency. This racially provocative remark is so oft-repeated by the left it has become a cliché. Search “constitution enshrined slavery” and Google offers an astounding 888,000 responses.
Mike Bates over at News Busters did a piece on the phrase in 2008. Here is a bit of his work.
According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, “enshrine” means “to enclose in or as if in a shrine” or “to preserve or cherish as sacred.” Over at thesaurus.com, synonyms for the word are “cherish, consecrate, idolize, sanctify.”
John Adams opposed slavery his entire life as a “foul contagion in the human character” and “an evil of colossal magnitude.” James Madison called it “the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.”
White-haired old George Mason of Virginia was openly and passionately abolitionist. He wanted all slaves freed. Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, stumping heavily on his wooden leg, vented his anger. His words rang through the hall. ”The curse of heaven on the states where it [ slavery ] prevailed,” he thundered.
That doesn’t sound as though slavery were cherished or sanctified by at least some of the Founding Fathers. Rather, it was acknowledged as an evil, an issue that needed to be avoided to ensure the building of a nation.
Thanks Mike. Back at the bookstore, I did find a conservative book. It was one of Glenn Beck’s and on display in the Political Science section at the very bottom where it was easy to kick with your toe.
Bob B
RANDOM THOTS 