Fraters Libertas

All Cattle, No Hat

Another strong e-mail from reader E.B. on the Bush carrier landing:

Naturally, the newsbirds are all a-twitter about the president landing on an aircraft carrier yesterday. Very impressive stuff, actually, just dandy for the 2004 campaign videos. Well, yes, of course. The president's a politician. Imagine that.

Still, it was the type of risk that drives the Secret Service crazy. These things do go wrong sometimes, so there had to be a better reason to land the president on an aircraft carrier with a jet. Yes, it was a fine speech --the world has been remarkably redefined-- but that speech could have been given anywhere. Why an aircraft carrier? Why the unusual risk?

The president could have just as easily waited a day or two to greet The Abraham Lincoln in port, ascended the hustings of a star-spangled stage, and given the same speech to an even larger and adoring crowd. The great ship, its midshipmen dressed-out in rows behind him, the cheering masses --helluva photo-op, which would have avoided all the clucking hens of punditry now complaining of base showmanship.

But if this president had done the usual thing, the safer thing, some little boy or girl would be standing on the dock below waiting to see their daddy again for the first time in 10 months. It's the longest hardest wait in the world. The family would be there, the boat would be there, and daddy would be there, but before they can be together again, there's this big speech by the prez, the security checkpoints, the television crews, the political groupies, the protesters, and so on. And all you want is to see your dad again.

That's probably why the jet landed on a carrier underway. It was a jet and not a helicopter, not because it was too far asea, but because you can't eject from a helicopter if something goes wrong. The inevitable welcome-home-job-well-done event took place on the sailor's schedule, so as not to delay his reunion, not according to some political hack's polling data or the celebrity media's ability to capture the really big show.

The happy result is not one little boy or little girl, not one wife or husband, mother or father, or brother or sister will have to wait a moment longer on that hot dock today in San Diego to bring their sailor home. There isn't going to be some long, stupid high-falutin' fat cat ceremony first. You can just find your sailor, get his stuff, and go home. And, by George, that sailor just met the President of the United States, landed right there on the ship, gave a speech and everything. That story gets told a thousand times.

There'll be alot of wide eyes tonight. It will be a happy time, even happier because the president stole not a moment of it. Instead, he gave something profoundly respectful to military families everywhere: Time together, far from the maddening crowd....

It was a very classy thing to do. It was a very honorable thing to do.