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Photo from Whitehouse.gov<\/a><\/p>\n Coming back from vacation, I’m trying to catch up news and found the headline quote in a link from Fausta’s Blog<\/a>. I thought maybe I’d been away longer than a week – it was a quote we could have only dreamed of a scant few months ago. It’s been a long time since a French leader recognized the United States as anything except an adversary – most of my half-century of life on this planet.<\/p>\n The quote (as reported by the BBC<\/a>) from Sarkozy came from the speech he gave to Congress, but the rest of the paragraph is more heartwarming;<\/p>\n “America liberated us. This is an eternal debt,” he said, adding: “I want to tell you that whenever an American soldier falls somewhere in the world, I think of what the American army did for France.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The BBC also reported that Mr. Sarkozy\u00c2\u00a0was at Mount Vernon yesterday\u00c2\u00a0discussing events with President Bush<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0(press conference video here<\/a>). That’s particularly significant to me because of what resides there (besides George and Martha Washington). On the wall in the entranceway to Mount Vernon hangs an ancient key.<\/p>\n It’s the key to the west portal of the Bastille prison, where many of the French monarchy’s political prisoners were held. The storming of the Bastille on July 14th, 1789, to the French,\u00c2\u00a0equates to our own Boston tea party or the skirmish at Boston Commons. It was the opening salvo in their own fight for liberty.<\/p>\n In 1790, General Lafayette sent the key to the Bastille to George Washington – to me, that key\u00c2\u00a0represents France’s indebtedness\u00c2\u00a0to the\u00c2\u00a0United States for influencing their own struggle for freedom. Unfortunately, that link has been diluted by five French constitutions, and communism (or socialism, or progressivism, or whatever you want to call that crappy religion to which the peawitted are clinging\u00c2\u00a0these days).<\/p>\n I’ll never forget the first time I saw the key when the guide explained it’s history. Always the cynic,\u00c2\u00a0I thought “Ungrateful frogs”. I’d wished that the whole country of France could see that key on that wall – maybe it’d cause an national epiphany. Then I bought a replica which is now on my bookcase between the bronze busts of Washington and Reagan.<\/p>\n Fausta quotes from the translation<\/a> of Sarkozy’s speech to Congress earlier in the day;<\/p>\n What makes America strong is the strength of this ideal that is shared by all Americans and by all those who love her because they love freedom.<\/p>\n America’s strength is not only a material strength, it is first and foremost a spiritual and moral strength. No one expressed this better than a black pastor who asked just one thing of America: that she be true to the ideal in whose name he, the grandson of a slaves, felt so deeply American.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I still can’t shake the feeling that I must be dreaming.<\/p>\n Say Anything<\/a> has video of Sarkozy’s speech to Congress. Rob echoed my thoughts exactly while I watched it;<\/p>\n He speaks of America in such glowing terms that you almost wonder if he isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, in some ways, more American than certain Democrats\u00c2\u00a0I could think of.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And if you went looking for reports of Mr. Sarkozy’s speech this morning in the Washington Post<\/a>, you’d have been disappointed. The first article I came across was a Reuters<\/a> attempt at serious journalism – which failed, by the way;<\/p>\n French President Nicolas Sarkozy returned home on Thursday from Washington to face skepticism about his new transatlantic friendship and a month of strikes that signal a growing pile of domestic problems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I wonder when the rest of the Left is going to recognize America’s contribution to liberating the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![](\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2003\/1920040722_8845f8e277_o.jpg\")
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