This evening’s NBC News broadcast with Brian Williams had a beautiful piece about Sargent Shriver who epitomized the liberal ideal through good works for the people of this country. He did so through public service as head of the Peace Corps and the head of President Johnson's War On Poverty program. They included a recording of President Johnson on the phone trying to talk a reluctant Shriver into taking his war on poverty post. What struck me most about the phone call was the President telling Shriver in a most insistent tone "I want to get rid of poverty in this country." Let’s imagine for a moment, if you could, a concerted government effort to rid our nation of poverty in today’s tea party world where the "I've got mine" dynamic rules at the expense of those that certainly don't have theirs either through circumstance or the extension of public policies aligned against their economic interest.
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