Our Founding Father vs. Their Founding Father: Spot the Differences
From the December 13, 2005 edition of the Christian Science Monitor: To Bush, Iraq's path to democracy akin to America's. In a speech Monday, he reminded a skeptical public of Founding Fathers' infighting. In speaking of the Iraqi democratic process from a Philadelphia stage, Bush aimed to invoke the image of America's own Founding Fathers in support of Iraq's new political leaders. As Bush said, the United States did not produce a constitution that could win ratification until years after the American Revolution. ("The eight years from the end of the Revolutionary War to the election of a constitutional government were a time of disorder and upheaval.There were uprisings, with mobs attacking courthouses and government buildings. There was a planned military coup that was defused only by the personal intervention of George Washington. In 1783, Congress was chased from this city by angry veterans demanding back pay, and they stayed on the run for six months. The...