The State of the Union

I missed the first half of the inaugural address and figured I'd probably missed the best part and was stuck with a litany of spending proposals. Boy, was I wrong! Did he front-load it with the boring stuff? The recognition of our American soldiers and their families was incredibly poignent--especially the embrace between the Iraqi woman and the mother of the slain soldier.

From Peggy Noonan's column:

The end of the speech offered an unforgettable moment. When the mother of Marine Sgt. Byron Norwood, who gave his life in Iraq, was honored in the balcony, and then leaned down to embrace the woman in front of her, an Iraqi who had lost her father to Saddam, and who had just voted--when that mother embraced that woman it said more than words could about what we are doing and why. Sacrifice brings progress; courage brings deliverance; love born in Pflugerville can liberate in Fallujah. It pierced the heart.

Beautifully said. I don't remember ever being emotionally stirred by a State of the Union address. The closest to it was that joint session of Congress in which President Bush first laid out the plans for the war against terror after 9/11.

I just can't imagine how lame an address it would have been had it been delivered by President Kerry (shudder).

I, for one, am still proud to be an American...and expect to be so for at least four more years. Then we'll have to see if the electorate will give me another reason to see our nation as a beacon of not only freedom, but wisdom and common sense in a world full of silliness, thuggery, and disdain for God and His people. We have a lot of that in our country too, but here, at least, many of those people are being turned away from elected office...especially the highest office in the land. Christians are rising up and taking their stand--no longer hiding in their homes and churches during election season. May this not only continue, but grow exponentially.