Day 3.085: Dresses and addresses

This morning, we packed up our very successful little suite at Virginian Suites in Arlington and headed back into D.C. for one last time. We started the day at the National Museum of American History at Exile #3's request. She could happily have spent all day there, but instead, after seeing the First Ladies exhibit, the red slippers from the Wizard of Oz and a few other good exhibits, we retreated to have a picnic lunch in the National Mall and then had a whistle-stop visit to the National Museum of Air and Space.  Pictured (clockwise from top left): Michelle Obama's gown, one of  Martha Washington's dresses, Mary Lincoln's dress (stripes) with a scarily tiny waist! Exile #2 meeting her green hero, the girls with the ruby slippers, Exile #3 feeling the big bang and in the centre, the kids and a spacesuit.

Seeing the changing fashions from the first to the latest First Ladies via Mrs Lincoln reminded me of the fashions in monuments we noticed and in the difference in tone from one end of the reflecting pool to the other.  At the Lincoln Memorial, you can read these words:

"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces but let us judge not that we be not judged.  The prayers of both could not be answered - that of neither has been answered fully..."

While at the other end you can read this quote from WWII general George Marshall in the memorial opened during George W Bush's presidency:

"We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other."

What a swing from humility to pride I see there - not to belittle in any way the US armed forces' contribution to WWII which is rightly honoured there - but I do question this quote and especially its presence here as a sign of glorying in the power of one nation over another by force which is hard to take in the modern world.

Tori Amos put it like this:

I salute to you Commander and I sneeze
'cause I have now an allergy to your policies it seems
Where have we gone wrong America?
Mr. Lincoln we can’t seem to find you anywhere...
Is this just the Madness of King George?  Yo George
Well you have the whole Nation on all fours

We've seen the dress that his successor's First Lady has added to the collection - I wonder what tone we will find in his policies at the end of his time in office?