Excerpts from My Journals
[Dated Monday, June 16, 2003. ]
Someone needs to remind us that what is special about America is not just its power, unprecedented in the world, but also its principles. The one is secure enough, the other in more peril than we’re willing to admit.
William Raspberry. From the Washington Post, page A23.
Back in 2003 when I read this, just after I had gotten back from college for the summer, I didn’t realize how true it was. I wrote down the line because it had a certain poetic, and ominous ring – but I remember thinking it was overstated. Over time, William Raspberry’s column looks better and better.