Parting Thoughts on Good and Evil

This partial transcript of Fox News Sunday, September 16, 2001 was provided by the Federal Document Clearing House. Click here to order the complete transcript.

Good and evil almost never express themselves as harshly and clearly as they did Tuesday morning. People we don't know slaughtered people we do, and they did it with contemptuous glee.

Yet, even as clouds of dust and smoke rose from the rubble, even as family members  tortured by hope and doubt took to the streets with pictures and pleas; even as mobs celebrated in Gaza, Cairo and Bagdad something shook itself to slow life.

That something was a sense of ourselves. Kindness flourished amid the flames. A couple carried a disabled man down 68 flights of stairs. A priest crouched to give last rites as a mighty tower collapsed and the hand of God closed about him. A man and woman, their hope gone, held each other and leaped.  A solitary candle, a flag, a tear.  These are the tokens of our renewal.

The United States had a spirit even before it had a name -- one of faith and freedom; of ambition tempered by public piety. We once were a nation of neighbors and friends. We are again today. We once were a nation of hardship-tested dreamers. We are again today. We once were a nation under God. We are again today. Our enemies attacked one nation. They will encounter another for they underestimated us.

Today, in our grief and rage; our determination and hope, we have summoned what is best and noblest in us; the kinship that awes our enemies and friends alike. We are again -- Americans.

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