[Citizen Zed]

"the sword of Damocles" ?

Did Dennis Miller write the speech?

[GeronL]

Commie makes PR push, leftists pee their pants in adoration

[knarf]

According to the story, pandering to his king, Dionysius, Damocles exclaimed that, as a great man of power and authority surrounded by magnificence, Dionysius was truly extremely fortunate. Dionysius then offered to switch places with Damocles, so that Damocles could taste that very fortune firsthand. Damocles quickly and eagerly accepted the king's proposal. Damocles sat down in the king's throne surrounded by every luxury, but Dionysius arranged that a huge sword should hang above the throne, held at the pommel only by a single hair of a horse's tail. Damocles finally begged the king that he be allowed to depart because he no longer wanted to be so fortunate, realizing that with great fortune and power comes also great responsibility (and danger).[2][1]

King Dionysius effectively conveyed the sense of constant fear in which a great man may live. Cicero used this story as the last in a series of contrasting examples for reaching the conclusion he had been moving towards in this fifth Disputation, in which the theme is that virtue is sufficient for living a happy life.[3][4] Cicero asks, "Does not Dionysius seem to have made it sufficiently clear that there can be nothing happy for the person over whom some fear always looms?"[5]

[SeekAndFind]

Well, the old Soviet Union had parades like this all the time, from Kruschev to Gorbachev.

[OldSmaj]

For all the pomp, bluster and circumstance, not to mention the testosterone and macho BS being projected...you would think the HCIC would get to ride in a car just a little better than a Lada ripoff with a sun roof.

They shined it up real pretty, though.