Tea at Trianon: Sobran on FDR

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Sobran on FDR

An article by Joe Sobran on the president who helped to hand eastern Europe over to the Soviets, inflicting oppression, torture and death on entire nations. Via LRC.

I think it is overreaching a bit to say that there is no question of the greatness of the man who gave the world the atomic bomb, made war on civilian populations, befriended Stalin’s Soviet Union, lied flagrantly to the public, vandalized the Constitution, centralized power, illegally put innocent American citizens into concentration camps, debased the currency ... you get the drift. There is in fact some question as to his greatness and always has been. Share

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: Those were difficult times and it is easy to second guess him now just as we do Lincoln. The fact is he led us through some of the most trying times in world history. I get tired of people always debunking Presidents as if they could do a better job. Now the current one.....that is another matter. Why he has not been impeached I do not know!; June 20, 2007 at 8:25:00 AM EDT
Anonymous said...: Elena, thank you so much for saying it. He (and others) did handed East-Europe on a silver plate to Stalin. I come from Romania and anyone who read this post should feel free to ask me how it was to live in country where Communism was imposed by brutal force while the West was pretending to not see this rape.; June 20, 2007 at 8:46:00 AM EDT