We Need This Woman. Where Are Our Leaders to Say This about America?

[Tarheel]

I heard some audio excerpts from Australia's Prime Minister, the Hon. Julia Gillard, as she spoke before a joint session of our Congress yesterday and I was ready to shout: "Where is the American leader to say this about America?!"  Our sad lacuna of leadership is galling to me at this point.  We have an empty suit as a leader, a man in name only, who is but a spectator.  And all the Republican party can dish up for counter points to The ONE's Sauron is Gingrich, Huckabee, and Haley Barbour...what a sad Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam.  We are doomed unless someone like this Lady can step up to the plate.

Here are some excerpts of the Hon. Julia Gillard's speech, all emphasis is my own but I'd recommend taking the time to read the whole speech (link at bottom):

...
Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am the fourth Australian Prime Minister to address you here assembled.

Like them, I take your invitation as a great honour.  Like them, I accept it on behalf of Australia.
...

Speaking for all the Australian people through you to all the people of the United States they each came with a simple message.

A message which has been true in war and peace, in hardship and prosperity, in the Cold War and in the new world.

A message I repeat today.

Distinguished Members of the Senate and the House ...

You have a true friend down under.

For my parents’ generation, the defining image of America was the landing at Normandy.

Your “boys of Point-du-Hoc” risking everything to help free the world.

For my own generation, the defining image of America was the landing on the moon.

My classmates and I were sent home from school to watch the great moment on television.

I’ll always remember thinking that day: Americans can do anything.

Americans helped free the world of my parents’ generation.

Americans inspired the world of my own youth.

I stand here and I see the same brave and free people today.  I believe you can do anything still.

There is a reason the world always looks to America.

Your great dream – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – inspires us all.

Those of you who have spent time with Australians know that we are not given to overstatement.

By nature we are laconic speakers and by conviction we are realistic thinkers.

In both our countries, real mates talk straight.

We mean what we say.

You have an ally in Australia.

An ally for war and peace.

An ally for hardship and prosperity.

An ally for the sixty years past and Australia is an ally for all the years to come.

Geography and history alone could never explain the strength of the commitment between us.

Rather, our values are shared and our people are friends.

This is the heart of our alliance.

This is why in our darkest days we have been glad to see each other’s face and hear each other’s voice.

Australia’s darkest days in the last century followed the fall of Singapore in 1942.

And you were with us.

Under attack in the Pacific, we fought together.  Side by side, step by bloody step.

And while it was Australian soldiers at Milne Bay who gave the Allies our first victory on land in the Pacific War, it was American sailors at the Battle of the Coral Sea who destroyed the fear of an invasion of Australia.
...
In the decades since, we have stuck together.  In every major conflict.  From Korea and Vietnam to the conflicts in the Gulf.

Your darkest days since Pearl Harbour were ten years ago in Washington and New York.

And we were with you.
...
From my discussions with your country’s leaders in Washington, my meetings with our generals in Afghanistan and my time with our troops, this is my conclusion:

I believe we have the right strategy in place, a resolute and courageous commander in General Petraeus, and the resources needed to deliver the strategy.
...
As an ally we share your resolve.

Afghanistan must never again be a safe haven for terrorism.

Just as our security alliance is one for war and peace, our economic partnership is one for hardship and prosperity.
...

We believe life is given direction and purpose by work.

Without work there is corrosive aimlessness.  With the loss of work comes the loss of dignity.

This is why, in each of our countries, the great goal of all we do in the economy is the same to ensure that everyone who can work does work.
...
We worked hard with you during the global economic crisis to resist protectionist pressures.  This only built on our decades working together to promote free trade in the world.

I know many of you worked hard to achieve the Australia-US Free Trade agreement.

Thank you.
...
Like you, our relationship with China is important and complex.

We encourage China to engage as a good global citizen and we are clear-eyed about where differences do lie.

My guiding principle is that prosperity can be shared.

We can create wealth together.

The global economy is not a zero-sum game.

There is no reason for Chinese prosperity to detract from prosperity in Australia, the

United States or anywhere in the world.

America has always understood this principle of the economy - that everyone can benefit when everyone competes.
...

In both our countries, true friends stick together ... in both our countries, real mates talk straight.

So as a friend I urge you only this: be worthy to your own best traditions.

Be bold.

In 1942, John Curtin – my predecessor, my country’s great wartime leader – looked to America.  I still do.

This year you have marked the centenary of President Reagan’s birth.

He remains a great symbol of American optimism.

The only greater symbol of American optimism is America itself.

The eyes of the world are still upon you.

Your city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Your brave and free people have made you the masters of recovery and reinvention.

As I stand in this cradle of democracy I see a nation that has changed the world and known remarkable days.

I firmly believe you are the same people who amazed me when I was a small girl by landing on the moon.

On that great day I believed Americans could do anything.

I believe that still.

You can do anything today.

Full text:
http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/address-congress-united-states-washington

[CCTAU]

Damn. Can I vote for her?

[Tarheel]

Damn. Can I vote for her?

I know what you mean.  You may recall the President of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, speaking similarly about our country before a joint session of Congress just a few short years ago.

It's pretty sad when foreign leaders sound more bullish on America than our own leaders.  The ONE ought to be ashamed.  And, again, I'm embarrassed that we have him as a president. 

From Sarkozy's speech:

...
America did not teach men the idea of freedom; she taught them how to practice it. And she fought for this freedom whenever she felt it to be threatened somewhere in the world. It was by watching America grow that men and women understood that freedom was possible.
...

The men and women of my generation heard their grandparents talk about how in 1917, America saved France at a time when it had reached the final limits of its strength, which it had exhausted in the most absurd and bloodiest of wars.

The men and women of my generation heard their parents talk about how in 1944, America returned to free Europe from the horrifying tyranny that threatened to enslave it.

Fathers took their sons to see the vast cemeteries where, under thousands of white crosses so far from home, thousands of young American soldiers lay who had fallen not to defend their own freedom but the freedom of all others, not to defend their own families, their own homeland, but to defend humanity as a whole.

Fathers took their sons to the beaches where the young men of America had so heroically landed. They read them the admirable letters of farewell that those 20-year-old soldiers had written to their families before the battle to tell them: "We don't consider ourselves heroes. We want this war to be over. But however much dread we may feel, you can count on us." Before they landed, Eisenhower told them: "The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you."
...
And as they listened to their fathers, watched movies, read history books and the letters of soldiers who died on the beaches of Normandy and Provence, as they visited the cemeteries where the star-spangled banner flies, the children of my generation understood that these young Americans, 20 years old, were true heroes to whom they owed the fact that they were free people and not slaves. France will never forget the sacrifice of your children.

...

The deliberations of your Congress are conducted under the double gaze of Washington and Lafayette. Lafayette, whose 250th birthday we are celebrating this year and who was the first foreign dignitary, in 1824, to address a joint session of Congress. What was it that brought these two men—so far apart in age and background—together, if not their faith in common values, the heritage of the Enlightenment, the same love for freedom and justice?

Upon first meeting Washington, Lafayette told him: "I have come here to learn, not to teach." It was this new spirit and youth of the Old World seeking out the wisdom of the New World that opened a new era for all of humanity.

Full text of that speech (also worth the read):
http://www.nysun.com/national/speech-by-president-sarkozy-before-congress/66054/
...

[GH2001]

I miss American exceptional-ism. I really do.

[GarMan]

I miss American exceptional-ism. I really do. 

I believe that we still have it, but it's no longer Politically Correct to acknowledge it, especially if your a Democrat out on the election trail or out on another world apology tour.