{"id":56901,"date":"2017-11-25T19:03:39","date_gmt":"2017-11-25T19:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=56901"},"modified":"2017-11-25T19:05:12","modified_gmt":"2017-11-25T19:05:12","slug":"a-wish-for-wisdom-white-house-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=56901","title":{"rendered":"A call for wisdom, White House edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charless Cameron<\/strong> — frankly, waiting for a return to wisdom, or at least something closer to it ]
\n.<\/p>\n

In the White House there’s an inscription over the mantel of the State Dining Room which reads:<\/p>\n

I Pray Heaven To Bestow The Best Of Blessings On This House And All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s from our first president, John Adams, <\/strong>in his letter to his wife, Abigail<\/strong>, but it resonates down to our day.<\/p>\n

How do we recognize wisdom?<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t believe we can legislate that only the honest and wise can attain the presidency, though we might do well to have Robert Bolt<\/strong>‘s Thomas More<\/em> in A Man for all Seasons<\/a> at the head of the Justice department — Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor of England who famously said, answering Roper <\/strong>who said he’d cut down all the laws to offer the Devil no protection:<\/p>\n

Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you \u2014 where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast \u2014 man’s laws, not God’s \u2014 and if you cut them down \u2014 and you’re just the man to do it \u2014 d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

Thomas More was, no doubt a man with his own flaws, and the flaws of his times. Flaws, okay.<\/p>\n

Where is a true sense of justice? Of honor? Of integrity? Where is a man for all seasons?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ by Charless Cameron — frankly, waiting for a return to wisdom, or at least something closer to it ] . In the White House there’s an inscription over the mantel of the State Dining Room which reads: I Pray Heaven To Bestow The Best Of Blessings On This House And All that shall hereafter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[602,620,526,1062,667,67,1460,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-16th-century","category-18th-century","category-charles-cameron","category-honor","category-justice","category-movies","category-potus","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56901"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56921,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56901\/revisions\/56921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}