There was a time when a president who said he would do whatever it took to protect America would have garnered a little more (what's the phrase?) press scrutiny. People like that wind up the subject of Costa Gravas movies. If you've seen "Z," you'll remember the generals justifying their martial rule with a cancer upon the nation.

First you demonize and then you capitalize on the freedom you have arranged for yourself to be incontrovertible. Dictatorships are known for their efficiencies.

That the setting was modern Greece, the birthplace of democracy, was not insignificant to the story.

Granted, we don't live under a pure democracy, we owe much to The Enlightenment, and have our unique history of social progress in fits and starts, but when remembering Robert F. Kennedy on June 6, there was hardly a broadcast which didn't show him quoting a Greek poet or favorite idealist.

The night of Dr. King's death, he went on with an appearance in Indianapolis, despite great apprehension from his staff. He told the crowd, "...we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times."

As if making current a timeline on the rights of man, he then said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote. 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.'"

I was on the longest Greyhound bus ride of my life the night Bobby was shot. Chicago to New York and at each stop there were further developments, and then the first edition papers. I was a supporter and would have been proud to see him with two terms.

You look at the Republican eleven. The only one remotely playing by the rules of reason is the bomb-thrower. You can't make it up. It's their new normal. After 6 years of Bush et. al., you know the drill.

And for the Democrats, if the focus group extrusion process should fall to a hunger for a return to a candidacy like Bobby Kennedy's, who among them could claim that mantle?

Aeschylus, Schmaeschylus.

The textbook appreciation of the American Revolution is that it "signaled that, for the first time, some individuals were going beyond merely discussing enlightened ideas and were actually putting them into practice." (MS Bookshelf '98)

So how did we wind up with a preponderance of Americans seeking, as an ethic, to replace personal freedom and social progress with personal progress and freedom from social responsibility? I wish it weren't so, but some mysteries may never be cracked. I, for example, would love to know why the phrase "with cheese?" sent a dinner table of grown-ups into paroxysms of laughter, over fifty odd years ago.

It was an Art Linkletter moment; they do say the darnedest things, though often unintentionally. I went from happy to be making others happy, not to mention the limelight, to sad, incredibly sad that they couldn't tell me why it was funny. I think I'm closer to understanding the former puzzlement. It has much to do with cultural shifts in the post-advertising age and the co-opting of free will. 

The savvy and long-time reader knows I repeat myself most in this area, but the musician in me would rather you called it leitmotif. Sounds better than redundant.

As for "with cheese?" Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?