"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
(APPLAUSE)
MCCAIN: Not our political opponents. And certainly -- and certainly not a disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe...
AUDIENCE: Booo!
Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
MCCAIN: Please, please, my friends.
That line was so good, I'll use it again. Certainly not a disingenuous film maker...
(APPLAUSE)
MCCAIN: ... who would have us believe, my friends, who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace, when in fact -- when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children inside their walls.
* * *
MCCAIN: Let us argue -- let us argue our differences, but remember we are not enemies, but comrades in a war against a real enemy, and take courage from the knowledge that our military superiority is matched only by the superiority of our ideals and our unconquerable love for them.
Our adversaries are weaker than us in arms and men, but weaker still in causes. They fight to express -- they fight to express a hatred for all that is good in humanity. We fight for love of freedom and justice, a love that is invincible.
Keep that faith. Keep your courage. Stick together. Stay strong. Do not yield. Do not flinch. Stand up. Stand up with our president and fight.
We're Americans. We're Americans, and we'll never surrender. They will.
McCain, the 9/11 family members, in a dignified and moving presentation, and Giuliani struck a positive theme on opening night, positioning the GOP as the party of the firemen and the soldiers, of pride and sacrifice, of taking the fight to terrorists and building freedom across the world – the party of those who favor, with the Flight 93 widow, doing something.
It is, as has been observed elsewhere, a progressive message, in contrast to the anti-platform of the Dems and of the massed Leftie protesters, who act, as a NYC cop minding them told Roger L. Simon, as if "fuggin 9/11 never happened."
* * *
I appreciate the late Chairman of the Board as much as anyone, but am not a great fan of the over-played "New York, New York." Here instead is a brief clip of "Sidewalks of New York," from the Smithsonian.
![[SMMMHDH]](http://www.mgilleland.com/music/smmmhdh.png){kind=small}
