I had the opportunity last night to sit in a packed college auditorium and listen to Former Vice President Mike Pence and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan sit on stage facing each other in comfortable chairs and basically reminisce the days of President Reagan....although Paul Ryan was only ten years old when Reagan first took office. Neither gave anything like a speech or a lecture but rather chatted with each other....for their professional and personal friendship goes back twenty-five years.
Paul Ryan was a budget expert in his time in Congress so he walked us through some of the intricate negotiations during the Bush II and Obama years....and he gave a little tutorial on the Democrat Party being taken over by progressives....and the Republican Party shifting from a principled populism of sorts to what we have today which is an extremist and radically me-centered populism....(my words.)
The two men tip-toed around President Trump giving specific credit at times....on certain Trump administration decisions....almost as much as they did to Ronald Reagan who the evening was designed to remember. Both men almost gushed on Trump's support of Israel but here they both evidenced myopia....where they have front and center the Abrahamic Accords....with no concern for either the lack of character in the man who forged the Accords....or the extreme volatility and unpredictability of historic enemies of Israel....who with the strike of a match could go right back to where they were....even strengthened by the military hardware and authority that we offer in those accords.
Overall the evening was like going back in time....for an hour and forty-five minutes....to where one grew up....with mostly good memories of holidays and summer vacations and young loves and hopes and dreams.
If you know the true feelings towards Donald Trump of these two men....then you could read between the lines on numerous occasions....but the chronic disease that the Republican Party has been afflicted with is that they keep thinking....as Mike Pence and Paul Ryan did last night....that if we can only make it past Donald Trump....we might be able to get back on track again. Well its been ten years....a lost decade.
The title of the evening was Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign theme....Morning In America....and that indeed was a calm and hopeful morning....but the day had progressed....and the evening come and gone....and it is now the third watch of the night....and the eye of the hurricane is only beginning to come ashore....or an iceberg of enormous proportions has suddenly appeared in front of our vessel traveling full steam ahead....whatever metaphor might apply best....but the following is not a metaphor.....but the very Word of God....Revelation 19:11-16.....
Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written:
KING OF KINGS AND
LORD OF LORDS.
