America's Cause is Still the Cause of All Mankind?

I bet we won't hear anything like this jingoistic militarism during this year's Democratic National Convention:

.... For 30 years, year by year, step by step, vote by vote, men of both parties have built a solid foundation for our present prosperity. Too many have worked too long and too hard to see this threatened now by policies which promise to undo all that we have done together over all these years.

I believe most of the men and women in this hall tonight, and I believe most Americans, understand that to reach our goals in our own land, we must work for peace among all lands.

America's cause is still the cause of all mankind.

Over the last 4 years the world has begun to respond to a simple American belief: the belief that strength and courage and responsibility are the keys to peace.

Since 1961, under the leadership of that great President, John F. Kennedy, we have carried out the greatest peacetime buildup of national strength of any nation at any time in the history of the world.

I report tonight that we have spent $30 billion more on preparing this Nation in the 4 years of the Kennedy administration than would have been spent if we had followed the appropriations of the last year of the previous administration.

I report tonight as President of the United States and as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces on the strength of your country, and I tell you that it is greater than any adversary. I assure you that it is greater than the combined might of all the nations, in all the wars, in all the history of this planet. And I report our superiority is growing....

Lookee there. A Democrat bragging — bragging! — that his party spent more on the military than the Republicans would have. And bragging — bragging! — that America's military superiority is growing.

Yes, that was President Lyndon B. Johnson at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 08/25/08 07:32:46 AM
Categorized as Historical & Political & Speeches and Suchlike.