"You Do Not Own Their Courage"

Charles Pierce has some words of wisdom on Eric Alterman's blog (scroll down) for the premature would-be triumphalists.

Excerpts:

The people who stood in line Sunday did not stand in line to make Americans feel good about themselves.

You do not own their courage.

....
They did not stand in line in order to justify the dereliction of a kept press. They did not stand in line to make right the wrongs born out of laziness, cowardice, and the easy acceptance of casual lying. They did not stand in line for anyone's grand designs. They did not stand in line to play pawns in anyone's great game, so you don't own their courage, you guys in the PNAC gallery....They did not stand in line to be the instruments of tawdry vilification and triumphal hooting from bloghound commandos. They did not stand in line to become useful cudgels for cheap American political thuggery, so you don't own their courage, Freeper Nation.....They did not stand in line for being the last casus belli standing. They did not stand in line on behalf of people's book deals, TV spots, honorarium checks, or tinpot celebrity. They did not stand in line to be anyone's talking points.

You do not own their courage.

We all should remember that.

Amen.

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Fareed Zakaria, who is always a pleasure to read and to hear (he was the guest on The Daily Show tonight), has some excellent centrist sense on mapping out the challenges ahead. In a rational universe, he'd have been in the running for a Cabinet post, instead of the soft bigotry of promoting trophy incompetents.