I’m not really the best person to sub for The Gipper on the uplifting speech front. If I’m not focusing on the empty half of the glass, I tend to be worried about all the things that can go wrong with the other half. But every time we remember the uplifting speeches he did give, and breathe life into them again in our lives, that uplifting spirit lives.

I think it is important to remember that he didn’t really write the line. It was given to him by a woman in a family in Germany he had visited. It struck a cord with him, and he remembered it, then wrote it into the first draft of his speech. From there it went through the first round of revisions under the watchful eye of the professionals, who removed the line. So he wrote it back in. After which it was reviewed again by the professionals at the State Department, who again removed the line. So when it came back to him, he wrote it back in. I believe it was even removed a third time, only to be written in, by Reagan in his own hand on the final copy of the speech he carried with him. And when he stood there making his speech, he delivered it with passion; the passion he felt himself, the passion of the woman who first spoke it to him, and the passion required from the leader of the free world standing by a faithful ally and facing an unyielding foe.

We’ve always swum upstream when defending freedom, even in the glory days. We should expect no less now.