WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- In early 1995, I met briefly with former Vice President Walter Mondale at a party just as he was beginning his service as America's ambassador to Japan. In those few short minutes, I was impressed by his authentic sense of humor and his ability to laugh at himself.
I told him an anecdote that had been related to me by a Cook County, Ill. Democratic precinct captain about Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign. In late October, a local official walked into a neighborhood tavern in the 41st Ward on Chicago's northwest side. He was worried that Ronald Reagan's appeal to blue-collar Democrats might affect the normal party vote in his precinct.
He noticed two guys sitting at the bar. Each wore a bright green poplin jacket with the large yellow seal of the United Auto Workers on the back. The TV over the bar was tuned to a college football game when a Mondale commercial came on that included a clip of a Mondale-Reagan debate. Mondale was criticizing Reagan for his Strategic Defense Initiative.
With a dramatic gesture of his hand through the air, Mondale said: "We must draw a line at the heavens" and not allow the arms race into outer space. To punctuate his point, the commercial closed with a scary picture of a missile roaring up out of a silo.
Maybe the two UAW guys were not listening all that carefully to the words. When the picture of the rocket came on, one guy nudged the other and said, "Look at that baby fly, is this a great country or what?"
As the ward heeler explained: "I figured then and there that Mondale might not lead the ticket in my precinct." To his enormous credit, Mondale chuckled heartily when I told him the story.
Friends and foes of the United States often express various degrees of wonder and irritation at the millions of average working Americans who are 100 percent "sold" on this country. America's natural instinct is always to rally around the national leadership in times of trouble, no matter what flaws we all might find with different aspects of our society.
When I was in high school 40 years ago, this bedrock patriotism, forged in the trial of two world wars, was still as solid as it could be in all regions of the country. In the following decades, it survived all the fissures of racial conflicts, civil unrest, the Vietnam War, the resignation of a president, recessions and inflation.
In most of the country, that bedrock patriotism never leaves us. While it might hibernate at times, it nevertheless wakens with a roar to lift our spirits whenever needed. It fired up our courage during Operation Desert Storm a decade ago and it gave us the consolation to reinforce our resolve again after September 11, 2001.
This core pride in our American identity is not the property of either political party, but it inspires the best idealism in both. It is much too precious a currency to be squandered on anything less than the most important national efforts that are vital to the protection of our freedom.
The present struggle against terror sometimes must focus on the malevolent dictators of hostile states and sometimes on their allies in the shadowy networks of irrational fanatics. This new kind of conflict makes it extremely hard to know where the "front" is or how far we have advanced.
The past year has produced a general anxiety that is all the more acutely felt because it has coincided with heretofore-unimagined threats. This comes on top of worries about erratic economic factors that have been partly influenced by the deeds of our enemies, and partly by rusty mechanisms and moral obtuseness in our own institutions.
Through it all, that bedrock faith in the nobility of our nation's mission in the world is a tonic for Americans that authoritarian states overseas still fail to comprehend.
You don't need a graduate degree in political science to appreciate that America's institutions, for all their shortcomings, are still the best arrangement ever devised by human beings to promote freedom and a decent life for the greatest number of our fellow creatures.
That is why the first anniversary of September 11, 2001 is not just a mournful memorial to victims, but also a proud and solemn affirmation that our country will yet survive, prosper and remain free come what may.
"Is this a great country or what?" Yes, it is a great country because millions of ordinary good people make it so. One year after the terror attack, most Americans are more determined than ever that freedom will yet triumph over despotism in all its hideous forms. For that spirit, we should all be proud.
To paraphrase the vision of Alexis de Tocqueville more than 160 years ago, the greatness of America is in the goodness of America, and when America ceases to be good it will cease to be great.
-- Mark Q. Rhoads is a former Illinois State Senator and a former editorial writer for the Chicago Sun-Times.
-- "Outside View" commentaries are written for UPI by outside writers who specialize in a variety of important global issues.
