 
                        20010607.00

     The quotations from George W. Bush inevitably bring to
mind historical analogies.

     Given the grandeur of Moses and the ludicrous
nothingness of Bush, it seems in bad taste, if not
sacreligious to mention them in a single sentence; but
historical conscientiousness requires us, as we poke fun at
Bush, to remember that Moses himself, so much so that Aaron
was assigned to speak for him, was afflicted with a speech
defect, without which he would likely not have been
entrusted with the Ten Commandments,

     King David was a different ruler. To the extent that
David himself was author of the Psalms attributed to him, he
was an inspired poet; to the extent that they were written
by others but said to have been his, the attribution is
evidence of the importance of mind and spirit in the lives
of the Jewish people.  And remember King Solomon as the
author of the Song of Solomon, of the sermons of
Ecclesiastes, and of the Proverbs.

     In the second book of his "Republic", the Greek author
Plato discusses at length the education necessary for the
rulers of the perfect state he envisioned. Plato attached
importance not so much to eloquence or diction as to
character, truthfulness, justice and the "love of wisdom" as
necessary qualifications of rulers. Plato thought that
states should be governed by philosopher kings.

     The Romans had such a one: he was the emperor Marcus
Aurelius a philosopher of the Stoic school, who wrote twelve
books of "Meditations" in Greek. Man's duty is to obey the
divine law that resides in his reason, superior to pains and
pleasures, to forgive injuries and to regard all men as
brothers; to await death with equanimity. (This summatry
from the Oxford dictionary)

     In the eighteenth century, there was Frederick II, King
of Prussia, also known as Frederick the Great, who was a
distant patron of Bach. Frederick was an accomplished
musician, he played the flute, and when Bach visited the
royal palace Sans Souci in Potsdam, Frederick gave Bach a
Theme and instructed him to write a set of variations which
we have today as Bach's "Musical Offering".  I have been
told that the Brandenburg Concerti were also written for
Frederick the Great. (Brandenburg is the province in which
Potsdam and Berlin are located.) Frederick was also an
author. He wrote poetry, essays, and plays, all in French;
he didn't think much of the German language.  He invited the
French writer Voltaire to stay in Berlin. Voltaire and other
French intellectuals actually shuttled between Berlin and
Paris, returning to Prussia, when things got too
uncomfortable in Catholic France. Prussia was in those days
the most liberal state in Europe.

     The men who founded the United States, Jefferson,
Madison and Adams, were as you know, highly educated,
literate and eloquent, as you can tell when you read the
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the
Federalist papers.

     But somehow this country seems to survive even with
presidents the likes of Warren Harding and Gearge W. Bush.

                         * * * * *