If you haven’t seen this capture of the plane landing in the Hudson and the rescue boats arriving, check it out. This is what American pilots, crews, and emergency folks can do when they’re on point.
I hope this turns out to have been an omen forecasting the resurgence of the American spirit. We can, if we put our minds to it, do what needs to be done.
I don't know about omen, but Sullenberger is certainly a vivid, timely and welcome reminder of what an American should be. Prepared. Capable. Competent. Cool in a crisis. Someone who acts decisively to avert disaster. Someone who rises to the occasion. Someone who does something extraordinary because at that moment, well, that's what the job is.
Sullenberger isn't the only hero, of course. The rescue workers on the scene had a job to do, too. And in steering toward the Hudson, it seems Sullenberger was counting on them to do their jobs at least as well as he was doing his. So let's add trust in one's fellow citizens to the list of his virtues.
And none of those people will ever have to make a speech explaining what they want you to think they accomplished.
The last eight years (or more) have been infuriating because of their endless parade of small, venal, mendacious men. Men who demean themselves, and us, and the entire country. Not just Bush. Or Cheney. Or Alberto Gonzales. But their enablers in Congress and the media, and their co-conspirators in the corporate world.
So here's to Chesley Sullenberger, and everyone else who saved the day. He makes me proud to live in a country that produces someone like him, precisely because I know there are millions like him. Let us hope that in the coming years, those will be the people who define this nation in our own eyes and the world's.
Posted by: Roddy McCorley on January 17, 2009 2:17 PM