Tuesday, February 22, 2011

"The Indispensable Man"

Having posted about the birthdays of Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, and Abe Lincoln, how could I skip General and President Washington?  (His "real" birthday is today, acts of congress notwithstanding.)

Well, I couldn't think of what to say.  Then Powerline reran this number from last year.
Today is the anniversary of the birth of George Washington. Of all the great men of the revolutionary era to whom we owe our freedom, Washington's greatness was the rarest and the most needed. At this remove in time, it is also the hardest to comprehend.
Back when Mrs. Drang and I were (somewhat) active in historical reenactment, the Revolutionary War email list I belonged to would periodically run a poll for "Greatest General."   Voting for George Washington was always a bit controversial, as, frankly, he lost almost every battle he entered.  Granted, he scored some amazing victories--just ask the Hessians at Trenton.

But I have a very hard time believing that anyone else, contemporaneous, let alone before or since, could have held things together through the series of adversities experienced by the brand new nation.

That alone makes General and President George Washington serve as my two-word answer to those who make the claim that there is no such thing as an "indispensable man"--if it were not for him, there would in all likelihood be no United States of America.

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