I’m watching the Republican National Convention right now and enjoying those “homemade” signs people prop up.
They have the catchiest slogans such as:
“Sacrifice, patience, understanding, and implacable purpose may be our lot for years to come. … Let’s talk sense to the American people! Let’s tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions.”
Not a quote from Obama in this uncertain economic age, but from 56 years ago, during the prosperous fifties, from Adlai Stevenson.
A political life I find interesting, mostly because he ran for President twice against the same President, Dwight D. Eisenhower. In both 1952 and 1956, the Democratic Party nominated Adlai Stevenson and both times he lost. It’s kind of like if John Kerry had ran twice against Bush and lost.
He went on to a career at the U.N., making his famous line ““Don’t wait for the translation, answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’!” during the Cuban missile crisis.
The Illinois native was also the subject of a very catchy Sufjan Stevens song.
And if you haven’t fallen asleep yet from reading this post, you can watch this C-Span discussion on the life of Stevenson.
I’m starting to be getting a little skeptical.
First he nominates Francis Collins to the NIH and now he’s putting a halt to sending humans back to the moon?
I think someone needs to arrange a special screening of Carl Sagan’s The Cosmos at the Whitehouse.
