65 years ago today, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, leading the United States into World War II.
As former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw, author of "The Greatest Generation," said today at ceremonies honoring the dead, "America in an instant became the land of the indivisible. There are so many lessons from that time for our time, none greater than the idea of one nation greater than the sum of its parts."
We who witnessed the attack and aftermath of 9/11 know the feeling; although at that time, it was not only Republicans and Democrats standing and singing together on the steps of the Capitol and throughout the nation but also people around the world standing with us in our moment of terror, despair, and commitment.
Today, in response to the just-released report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which warned that "the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating," President Bush acknowledged to the world that "it's bad in Iraq."
And that's bad not only for the people of Iraq and our people being killed and maimed over there by the thousands but also for America as a whole — increasingly, understandably considered a rogue nation, waging and threatening wars at will, with precious little concern for truth or justice.
And the unity of feeling and purpose that followed our not-so-great generation's moment of shock and awe from violent alien forces has been shattered within the country as well, as the old lines between "Slave States" and "Free" were redrawn, by those who would exploit our most bitterly contested differences for personal political or financial gain.
Tomorrow, next year, we will live in a new nation, we hope truly one nation, under God or whatever you hold most sacred: The people at large, in large measure, have by their votes united behind calls for change, in the particulars of the times — in Iraq and in their most personal concerns (as of jobs, healthcare, and education) — and more tellingly in the fundamental values or, more accurately, in how those values — as of fairness and liberties — are to be respected anew.
Perhaps it is a fine line between courage, as exemplified by those who did not capitulate to the attacks of dictatorships sixty-some years ago, and foolhardiness, as epitomized by those who emulate the dictators and shed the blood of others in a war that should have never been fought; but it is a distinction drawn by wisdom, which is my fondest hope for our tomorrow.