The King's Speech

As Bill Kristol has observed, last night's speech continued the President's breathtaking condescension to the American electorate. But we don't want to talk about that here.

And others have noted that the speech was laced with poll-tested words and phrases rather than substance. But we don't want to talk about that, either.

The theme of the President's speech was compromise (a word that he used six times, by our count). And that's fair enough. But -- respecting the matter of compromise -- we found this paragraph downright bizarre:

America, after all, has always been a grand experiment in compromise. As a democracy made up of every race and religion, where every belief and point of view is welcomed, we have put to the test time and again the proposition at the heart of our founding: that out of many, we are one. We’ve engaged in fierce and passionate debates about the issues of the day, but from slavery to war, from civil liberties to questions of economic justice, we have tried to live by the words that Jefferson once wrote: “Every man cannot have his way in all things -- without this mutual disposition, we are disjointed individuals, but not a society.”

While we think that the matter of slavery in the United States is certainly an instance of a "fierce and passionate debate," it seems rather an odd historical example to cite in support of the proposition that "America, after all, has always been a grand experiment in compromise."

There was very little "compromise" at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.