WSJ likes Kerry's replay of Langston Hughes'Let America be America again.'

Memo to Kerry - If the WSJ likes this - I would think twice before using it.


From the ABCNote: The Wall Street Journal's David Rogers waxes poetic about Sen. Kerry's new "rallying cry" borrowed from Langston Hughes: "'Let America be America again.'" Writes Rogers, "Kerry's three-day Western swing this week could prove a turning point. At a time of national self-doubt, the Massachusetts senator hopes to project an image of reassuring strength that melds 'can-do' American optimism with a call for a return to the sense of community."

A good idea is a good idea. It doesn't matter whether the opponent thinks it's a good idea too.

I'm not coming up with where, though -- I just know I've heard the phrase and have some sort of negative associations with it. I'll try to check it out.


On edit: I don't think this is what I had in mind, but it's just as good:

Text of Pat Buchanan 's speech announcing plans to seek the Reform Party presidential nomination:

<snip>

We need a new Supreme Court where only constitutionalists need apply, a court that will respect both state's rights and human rights, that will begin to undo the damage done this nation by judicial aggressions, beginning with that abomination they call Roe v. Wade.

We need a president and a Congress that will pick up the whip the Founding Fathers left in Article 3 of the Constitution, to heard the justices back into the narrow stalls to which they were first consigned by Hamilton and Madison.

What is a self-governing people doing meekly waiting each week for nine jurists to tell us how we may live and how we should governor ourselves?

As our fathers threw off a tyranny of kings, let us throw off this tyranny of judges and let America be America again.

http://www.zundelsite.org/english/zgrams/zg1999/zg9910/991025.html

(Note: The site where I found this is a piece of work in itself -- Holocaust revisionism and worse.)

Bob Dole for President 1980 Campaign Brochure
‘My concern is to let America be America again…to get
away from building the federal budget and the federal
bureaucracy and get back to building the nation.’

http://www.4president.org/brochures/bobdole80.pdf

The big spenders are getting aid and comfort from pundits like economist Paul Krugman. He says that even the moderate tax relief President Bush gave us always was a rotten idea. And especially now, letting us keep more of our hard-earned money can only "wreak havoc with long-term fiscal prospects," he says.

<snip>

We've suffered some big economic blows. If our leaders want to help the economy, they can exercise the discipline and patriotic spirit to get rid of the pork and corporate welfare and special-interest subsidies. Cut the spending, hack the bloat, and try to realize that sticking your hands ever deeper in our pockets isn't always the answer.

In short, let America be America.

http://www.termlimits.org/Press/Common_Sense/cs449.html


Today I see the Republican party reborn in its original, magnificent incarnation, as the party of liberation, the party of American power in the service of freedom, the party of Lincoln. And I will say that I am grateful to God for having allowed me to live to see this mighty outcome.

We have turned a page in our history. As our president has said, our cause is just. Freedom has come for the Iraqi people. Liberation will come to the Muslim and Arab peoples. Let America be America the liberator again!

http://www.libertarian.to/NewsDta/templates/news1.php?art=art212


And here's another blast from Pat Buchanan:

A regime that uses slave labor, bullies neighbors, brutalizes minorities and sterilizes weeping women is not one we ought to be doing normal business with. "Strategic engagement," has failed; it is time that the Grand Old Party put principle before profit.

Too often, we have had to wipe off our faces the spittle of the arrogant men in Beijing. And as our "statesmen" rummage about for a face-saving way to extend MFN, the world may fairly conclude we have become the "paper tiger" of Chairman Mao's depiction.

Let America be America again.

http://www.buchanan.org/pa-96-0506.html

this is one level kerry's campaign has to work on successfully to win in november. it has to tie his vision of america to the popular themes of the american dream/promise that most americans use as their national narrative, and which also sets the terms of the individual's place in things.

if kerry articulates his ideas and ideals about america and the world in a way people can understand and agree with, then they will like their own place in it and vote for him.

and he's getting better at articulating his vision and that bodes ill for bush.

living thing "policies", as the rest of US.

For example, just because Bush says we have to improve our environment, does not mean that saving the environment is bad. Who cares if a Repub has used it in another context. The phrase is perfect for what we need right now. Kerry often talks about living up to the values that America has always stood for. This phrase is perfect. This abuse scandal is un-American. Let America be America. Let American be the beacon of hope and freedom that it has always been.

Stop trying to find code words in everything Kerry says. It seems to me that you all are so used to being lied to that when Kerry says the right things and means them, you keep looking for code words to understand what he is saying. Let America be America, means that we live up to the dream of our founding father's. Plain and simple.

Sounds good to me.