Before we get all whipped up into that necessary frenzy that will carry us across the finish line 60 days hence…here’s a look back at what was to me the most moving speech from last night that wasn’t by an ex-President:
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Oh! Does she bring it — joyfully and hard — to the very core or the matter.
You can’t lead a good life, you can’t lead a good society, if you live only for yourself. She quoted Matthew 25:40 — “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me…”* and while the committedly Jewish atheist in my might counter with the more direct Hillel aphorism,** [Ooops. As commenter Kirbster notes, it was Elizabeth Warren who shoved Matthew into Romney/Ryan’s grill. I was having too good a time last night… and somehow persuaded myself I’d heard that lovely line from Sister Simone as I relistened today. Remember, folks eyewitnesses are just as reliable as one is….]
If I were Paul Ryan, and if I had that last residue of conscience left in me, I would be quaking in my [mountain climber’s] boots just now. Sister Simone ripped away the cloak of sanctity with which the GOP has shrouded so much of its viciousness over the last years — the venom directed at GLBT folk, the terror in the face of women claiming agency, the desperate drive to dismember any claims on either self-interest or conscience that the poor may have on the society as a whole.
Best part? When she reminded Paul Ryan that the bishops…the bishops! and not “merely” some nuns!…had condemned his budget as immoral. 1A: stating proudly that her version of a pro-life commitment extends to those who are in fact living among us.
A truly great speech, and one is rocking me into the right mood for what’s to come.
*I grabbed the King James version, which is not what I think she quoted last night. But I do love the music.
**”If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?”
Do You Feel Lucky (Enough To Mess With A Nun)? Well, Do Ya’ Punk?Post + Comments (146)