The white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot and George Washington – wasn’t nothing non-violent about old Pat or George Washington.
George Washington
Fantasy is the tendency of Americans, going back to colonial times, to look at the Middle East as a type of fractured mirror of the United States – a type of mirror that could look a lot more like the United States, if, say, a Middle Eastern George Washington would emerge.
George Washington participated as a vestryman in his local congregation, but that didn’t really imply any particular kind of religious belief. This was necessary in order to participate in the society.
George Washington sets the nation on its democratic path. Abraham Lincoln preserves it. Franklin Roosevelt sees the nation through depression and war.
I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.
It is hard for anyone who discovers George Washington not to write about him, perhaps because he is so hard to discover and such a surprise when you do.