Mark Steyn: Recalling a Time When Setbacks Didn't Deter Us

The Chicago Sun-Times ^ | May 30, 2004 | Mark Steyn

[Tares]

Thank you for the ping.

[Martin Tell]

Thanks for the excellent Shelby Foote citation.

I think Foote also makes the interesting point that Lincoln was in fact disguised while traveling through Baltimore to his first inaugural.

[alwaysconservative]

Thanks for the ping!

[Dog Gone]

I like that. Thanks.

[Amelia]

But that's the difference between then and now: the loss of proportion. They had victims galore back in 1863, but they weren't a victim culture. They had a lot of crummy decisions and bureaucratic screwups worth re-examining, but they weren't a nation that prioritized retroactive pseudo-legalistic self-flagellating vaudeville over all else. They had hellish setbacks but they didn't lose sight of the forest in order to obsess week after week on one tiny twig of one weedy little tree.

There is something not just ridiculous but unbecoming about a hyperpower 300 million strong whose elites -- from the deranged former vice president down -- want the outcome of a war, and the fate of a nation, to hinge on one freaky jailhouse; elites who are willing to pay any price, bear any burden, as long as it's pain-free, squeaky clean and over in a week. The sheer silliness dishonors the memory of all those we're supposed to be remembering this Memorial Day.

Bears repeating.

[irv]

I emailed this column to some people. Even for Steyn, whose work always shines, this one is a winner.