American Spectator, Trump really is presidential

Rabbi Dov Fisher is entertaining to read.

He begins by describing taking a break from grading law school papers. He turns on Fox News but cannot tolerate half the news presenters. He does exactly what the rest of us do by developing quick reflexes with the mute button switching "off" for all the people not worth hearing a single word from to "on" for the people we'd care to hear. So when they're talking to each other it becomes off on off on off on off on off on to the point of developing thumb-arthritis.

How I related to all of that. I bought extra remotes to place strategically to be even faster. This was when Obama was in the habit of providing daily footage that was run ceaselessly for eight s-s-s-traight year-s-s-s. I got s-s-s-o tired of hearing that man's voi-c-c-c-e. I couldn't s-s-s-tand another s-s-s-s-econd.

The problem is they all need batteries.

Then losing faith on Fox and switching over to CNN out of desperation for a fresh dose of whatever malevolent presentation they have for the day. Except that day they're presenting Trump, straight up with none of the customary detracting overlay. Fisher is surprised how presidential Trump's toast is. How short and sweet, how perfect for the situation.

Ultimately, Fisher's essay is about how surprisingly presidential Trump is when he needs to be. He does know how to behave and he does very well, even in such poor circumstance as being stuck with Prince Charles.

Fisher's writing style is amusing and attractive. He keeps saying the band played "My country 'tis of thee" (Yes, I know!)

Why does he keep saying "Yes, I know" after the title of the song?

I re-read the lyrics. Yes, those really are the lyrics. They're very sweet lyrics. A children's song, they get you, pow, right in the heart, the big part, smack in the right ventricle where it goes squish like a fist punching a water balloon and squeezing blood past a pulmonary valve through a carotid into your brain pulse pulse squish pulse pulse pulse.

So why does he keep saying "yes, I know?"

What does he know?

That I don't know.

Come on! Quit making me guess what you know after you write the title of the song.

Ew, I hate these guessing games.

Oh!

It's their song too.

Ha ha ha.

While the band is playing sweetly "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty" and getting us right in the heart, they're also playing their national anthem,  "God save the queen."

God save our gracious queen!
Long live our noble queen!
God save the queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us:
God save the Queen!

Bleh.

"Reign over us" that right there is the difference between subject and citizen.

These lyrics are groveling and they totally suck.

America's lyrics are a LOT better. Our version of their song is qualitatively better.

My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From eh-eh-vre-ee mountain side
Let freedom ring!

OMG, can you even stand it? Ours is beautiful and humble and gorgeous and fantastic, and theirs is just stupid.

GAWL! 

Australia uses this song, so does Canada,

Dieu protège la reine
Proteg'ra souveraine!
Vive la reine!
Qu'un règne glorieux
Long et victorieux,
Rende son peuple heureux.
Vive la reine!

See? The same supplication to a monarch.

Our loved Dominion bless
With peace and happiness
From shore to shore;
And let our Empire be
Loyal, united, free,
True to herself and Thee
For evermore.

Better. But still not as good as America's version.

Similar lyrics are used in New Zealand, Rhodesia and South Africa. They're all stuck on queens and on kings.

The melody is used all over the place. But none of the lyrics are so touching as America's version written by Samuel Francis Smith when tasked at Andover to translate the lyrics of German school songbooks into English or to write new lyrics for the same tunes. He wrote these lyrics in thirty minutes.

That's pretty fast lyric-writing for something so fantastic.

My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills,
Like that above.

Come on! That's fantastic!

Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom's song;
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.

Yes! Let us be the example for the rest of the whole f'k'n world!

Our fathers' God to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright,
With freedom's holy light,
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King!

You got your queen or your king and we place God as our king. That's why we're better than you. The lyrics are qualitatively better. The loyalty is better. The theology is better. The sentiment is better. Everything about this song is better.

Verses were added for various projects. People are so taken they're compelled to contribute their own expressions of feeling awestruck by their birthright.

Our joyful hearts today,
Their grateful tribute pay,
Happy and free,
After our toils and fears,
After our blood and tears,
Strong with our hundred years,
O God, to Thee!

Our blood and tears about what? We went to war, we bled and cried and died, to separate ourselves from England and to protect that liberty our forbearers earned.

We love thine inland seas,
Thy groves and giant trees,
Thy rolling plains;
Thy rivers' mighty sweep,
Thy mystic canyons deep,
Thy mountains wild and steep,–
All thy domains.

The Great Lakes, Giant red wood trees, the great planes, the Mississippi river, Grand Canyon, and Rocky Mountains, it's all right here. This country has everything to keep you fascinated for your entire lifetime.

They just kept adding and adding. We can't help ourselves. We keep thinking of fresh things to be blown away about.

Thy silver Eastern strands,
Thy Golden Gate that stands
Fronting the West;
Thy flowery Southland fair,
Thy North's sweet, crystal air:
O Land beyond compare,
We love thee best!

Finally the abolitionists get in on the act. Here was something to sing about. They must backhoe the hypocrisy with searing cynicism. They must take a beautiful song and make it ugly to drive their sanctimonious point.

My country, 'tis of thee,
Stronghold of slavery, of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Where men man’s rights deride,
From every mountainside thy deeds shall ring.

My native country, thee,
Where all men are born free, if white’s their skin;
I love thy hills and dales,
Thy mounts and pleasant vales;
But hate thy negro sales, as foulest sin.

Let wailing swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees the black man’s wrong;
Let every tongue awake;
Let bond and free partake;
Let rocks their silence break, the sound prolong.

Our father’s God! to thee,
Author of Liberty, to thee we sing;
Soon may our land be bright,
With holy freedom’s right,
Protect us by thy might, Great God, our King.

It comes, the joyful day,
When tyranny’s proud sway, stern as the grave,
Shall to the ground be hurl’d,
And freedom’s flag, unfurl’d,
Shall wave throughout the world, O’er every slave.

Trump of glad jubilee!
Echo o’er land and sea freedom for all.
Let the glad tidings fly,
And every tribe reply,
“Glory to God on high,” at Slavery’s fall!

You got what you wanted. A straight up civil war. Satisfied?

Of course not.

Give us some more verses to piss on this gorgeous song to inform us all how we failed in fulfilling your vision of utopia while refusing to simply live and be your visualization.