WASHINGTON — The statue in the Jefferson Memorial is 19 feet tall, but it’s the words carved in stone around the bronze figure that are truly monumental.
Such as these, from Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence:
“WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT, THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.”
“Again with the equality,” I thought, forcing back a smile. And the diversity — “all men”? Really?
Can’t have that. Not in 2025 America, where the same government that went to the expense and bother of erecting this palace to DEI is now scrubbing references to unfavored groups from official websites and giving certain people the bum’s rush — out of the military, out of the country.
How long will this offense be tolerated now that intolerance is the latest dance craze? Envision a trio of Three Stooges administration lackeys. The same crew who took down the Department of Defense page mentioning the Enola Gay — the name of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima — because, ewww, “gay.”
Imagine them showing up at the Jefferson Memorial in a blare of calliope music, a jumble of ladders and drop cloths and eye pokes, splattering plaster as they efface that forbidden “EQUAL” and slap on a more acceptable sentiment along the lines of “ALL MEN ARE CREATED … MANLY.”
“Nyuk nyuk nyuk, Moe, we soitenly are!”
Their next stop would have to be the Lincoln Memorial, where the Gettysburg Address covers one wall and goes straight into the DEI weeds: “FOUR SCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO” (let’s revert to lower case. These memorial caps look fine in marble but scream in print) “our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
“Alllllll men”? Yikes! Even immigrants who came here seeking refuge? Can’t they be unceremoniously bundled in a van by masked police and shipped to East Africa?
Or men who identify as women? Of course they can be cashiered from the armed forces because … well … I’m not sure what the excuse is. They make our leader uncomfortable, perhaps.
Meanwhile, my friends on the left will drill down on “men,” pointing out that women weren’t included in all this hoo-ha about freedom. Flash: There was no electricity, either.
Are these really our choices? History as George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. “Father, I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet.” Or history as Thomas Jefferson, rapist and enslaver, who also did some other stuff?
Does it have to be celebration or revulsion? Can’t we have the full spectrum? Glory and shame?
When I wasn’t minding (though not jiggling or kissing) my new granddaughter in her new home, I strolled over to memorials. Not just the Jefferson and the Lincoln, but Martin Luther King Jr., who of course was caught speaking publicly about “dignity, equality and freedom.” (I imagine the MAGA stooges will plaster that over with transcripts from J. Edgar Hoover’s surveillance tapes.)
The underappreciated and thoughtful Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial — contrast it with the explosion of wreaths, stars and eagles that is the insipid World War II Memorial — seems practically ripped from the headlines.
“In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose the path of social justice, the path of faith, the path of hope and the path of love toward our fellow man.”
Then there is this, from King’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize that our president covets and was just nominated for by his buddy, Benjamin Netanyahu:
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
Let’s hope so.
The memorials almost talk to each other. Jefferson’s feature a letter noting, “Commerce between master and slave is despotism.”
“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that justice cannot sleep forever,” Jefferson writes.
Lincoln sees that justice delivered in his second inaugural, surveying the disastrous Civil War. He prays it ends soon but knows, however long it lasts, we had it coming:
“If God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword … ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'”
Back at the Jefferson Memorial, one quote is larger than the rest, running around the interior of the dome in letters 3 feet high:
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
That sounds like a plan.