Good Tidings and Great Joy by Sarah Palin

Author:Sarah Palin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

I always love to have all the kids around during Christmas. This is the crew in 2005—check out Todd’s Tom Selleck mustache!

5

Bad News, Good News

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

—MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Southeastern University is located in Lakeland, Florida, and they have one of the best mascots in the country. Instead of a cardinal perched on a limb or a rocket spiraling into space, its mascot is fire. A flame, interwoven in its name and onto uniforms, representing the school’s mission and ideals. Often a name is providential, not just coincidental. I was delighted to accept Southeastern’s invitation to speak on campus at its Leadership Forum in March. It made me smile to think I would literally be “under fire” that day. Not only would I be allowed free rein to address any topic, but—through follow-up interviews and a Q&A session—I’d be able to share a most important message with their students. In whatever minuscule way I could, I wanted to encourage and empower them.

It didn’t hurt, either, that Florida was one hundred degrees warmer than frigid Fairbanks, where we had recently trekked to cheer Todd across the Iron Dog finish line on the frozen Chena River. I was happy to head south to thaw out, so I exchanged Bunny Boots for a pair of Bristol’s heels and headed down to Lakeland.

During my speech, I recited one of my favorite quotes to the students, faculty, and Southeastern supporters: “We in this country, in this generation, are—by destiny rather than choice—the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of ‘peace on earth, goodwill toward men.’ That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: ‘except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’”

The source of this quote? Which right-wing pundit called America the “watchman on the walls” for the world? What radical televangelist just had to add a Bible verse in there for good measure?

The answer might surprise you. The above quote would be ridiculously polarizing in today’s über-partisan culture—if a Republican leader uttered it, I could easily imagine the “talking heads” on television immediately dissecting it:

“What does it mean our country is a nation ‘of destiny’?”

“How patronizing to call ourselves the ‘watchmen’ of the world.”

“Since when did America begin to have the market on ‘righteousness’?”

“So now the whole country has to be kept by ‘the Lord’? Whose Lord?”

What my audience may not have known is that the above words are excerpted from a speech John F. Kennedy was scheduled to deliver on November 22, 1963. Tragically, he never got to the podium that day, because he was assassinated in Dallas en route in his motorcade.

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