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Rush quotes reactions in the press of the time to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (”... government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”):
The Harrisburg Patriot and Union wrote: “We pass over the silly remarks of the President; for the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall no more be repeated or thought of.”
The Chicago Times: “The cheeks of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dishwatery utterance.”
The London Times: ”[T]he ceremony was rendered ludicrous by some of the sallies of that poor President Lincoln… Anything more dull and commonplace it would not be easy to produce.”
The Springfield Republican was surprised at how well Lincoln did, though, noting: “We had grown so accustomed to homely and imperfect phrase in his productions that we had come to think it was the law of his utterance.”
The point being that any negative reactions from the press to Bush’s recent speech may be taken with a grain of salt.
