144 years ago, in the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, a college professor and a group of Maine lumberjacks and fisherman prevented the right flank of the Union Army from being turned. This action most likely saved the battle, and perhaps even the war for the United States.
Yesterday, a spoiled rich kid who vacations in the same state disregarded the laws the citizens of the United States have formulated over 231 years. And in that action, perhaps lost the soul of that nation saved on a rocky hill in Pennsylvania.
Could there be any greater irony?
Oh July 2nd, 1863, the forces the of confederacy and the United States were engaged in a bloody battle around a small southern Pennsylvania town. While the United States forces held the higher ground, and thus the tactitical advantage, errors made by General Dan Sickle had allowed confederate forced to advance on the south end of that high ground, at Little and Big Round Tops.
As the forces of the 15th Alabama were advancing on the United States position, the commanding general of the area, Gouverneur Kemble Warren realized that the end of the higher ground was unguarded and moved his troops to cover the area. At the extreme right (south, right as looking from the attackers point of few) was the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment. This regiment of lumberjacks and fisherman was led by a professor of rhetoric from Bowdoin College, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. When the regiment came under heavy attack after about 3-4 hours of fighting the 20th Maine completely ran out of ammunition and responded by charging downhill with fixed bayonets, thus ending the confederate attack on the hill.
So a group of volunteers, led by a professor who took a sabatical to join the Union Army, has been credited for saving the day, and thus leading to the disasterous Pickett's charge of 144 years ago today. This, and the Victory at Vicksburg Mississippi, was the beginning of the end for the rebellion.
Contrast this with the actions taken 144 years later. Actions taken by a spoiled son of a previously mediocre President. A failed businessman who was too cowardly to fight in the war of his generation. A C student who was admitted to 2 of our nations greatest Universities when he should have been rejected from the local community college.
This failure of a human, cocooned by layers of sychophants, decides to ignore the entire judicial history of the nation, and commute the sentence of a crony to one of political handlers. A convicted liar. This, from the same group who sentences 19yr olds to prison for life for selling as few as 1 joint 3 times. The same group whose children never serve in the military, the Peace Corps, Americorps, nothing beyond the beer corps.
I'm too digusted by the pardon of Lewis Libby to even put it into words. But I also was reminded of the bravery of the United States Army at Gettysburg by a calender on my wall. And I can't help but think of Abraham Lincolns words at the dedication of the cemetary that forever cradles some of the 20th Maine. I won't belabor this with the whole address, but this last part is where the tears always well up.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Today the tears well in my eyes, not from the memory of these men, but from the fear that the government of the people, by the people, is in peril of perishing from this country. The tears are for my children... for the Nation.
I'm going to turn the hollow words so often said by the group that has caused this obscenity.. God Damn George Walker Bush.