And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there
These are the words of the American national anthem, the words that schoolchildren sing, the song that opens every baseball game. These are words engraved in the American mind and the American character.
So it is hardly a shock, nor an act of duplicity, that President Clinton, in the most extreme crisis of his Presidency, in the greatest constitutional crisis the US has faced since 1974, might turn to bombs in the night to prove his mettle and save his presidency.
The cruise missiles raining down on Baghdad each evening are providing a spectacular light show on American television. Each missile costs $1 million; so far, the US has launched 400 of them. It is a display of might and superiority that is apparently irresistible, as polls show that Americans overwhelmingly support the action.
Exciting, perhaps, but if one is to assess actions in Washington on Friday, not enough to save Mr Clinton.
Yes, people in Iraq will die. Mortar and bricks will be turned to ash, roads will be destroyed. The physical damage will be impressive and photogenic.
But Saddam Hussein's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction will not be eliminated, thus setting the stage for more confrontations in the future.
And Mr Clinton's presidency will not be saved by this military action.
There is much suspicion in the US as to the timing of this attack, coming as it did on the eve of a vote to impeach Mr Clinton in the House of Representatives.
But two conflicting and incompatible hypotheses haunt both politicians and the public now.
The first is that it is unimaginable, beyond all notions of moral transgression, that a US president would bomb another country simply to get himself out of hot water.
The second is that it is also impossible to believe that this military strike needed to occur precisely at 5 p.m. East Coast Time, on Wednesday night, just in time for prime time television network coverage.
The conflict with Iraq has been going on since 1991. President Saddam Hussein's on-again, offagain co-operation with UN weapons inspectors has been a regular feature of the conflict.
The timing of the report by the UN inspector, Mr Richard Butler, was determined months ago, and the onset of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan was established over 1,400 years ago. Neither, in other words, was incalculable to the President.
Mr Clinton's contention that he was forced to begin military action before Ramadan strains belief. As one Iraqi in Baghdad told a reporter: "Oh yes. Bill Clinton wanted to get the killing done before the holidays, out of respect."
What Mr Clinton did, many Republicans and others believe, was an attempt to stop "the Big Mo". The Big Mo is a well known idea in American politics.
It is the big momentum, the moment when events are seemingly swept along by a powerful current that is almost mystical in nature. The Big Mo is delicious when it is flowing on your behalf; it is terrifying when your opponents have it on their side.
This week, the proponents of impeachment clearly had the Big Mo. By Tuesday, one undecided Republican congressman after another had announced they would support the effort to remove the President. Mr Clinton's attempt to avoid impeachment was collapsing.
Whether it was intentional or political or strategic - and no one knows that right now - Mr Clinton's military actions could reasonably have been expected to derail the impeachment train. Mr Clinton needed time. Any delay in the house vote would help.
Many times in his political history Mr Clinton has forced his opponents to overplay their hand. His providence, in his life and in politics, has often depended on tactics of delay, and he has often been saved by it, and luck. His first term as President, for example, seemed certain to be his last until the Republicans shut down the government in 1995 over a budget impasse. Mr Clinton then appeared to be the voice of reason.
But this time Mr Clinton's sense of timing was off. The Republicans, breaking with tradition and all political expectation, moved ahead with impeachment even as US troops were engaged in combat.
Mr Clinton's sense of risk, so impeccable in the past, seems to be misguided now, as misguided as it was when he took the risk of having an affair in the Oval Office with a 21-year-old intern. Francine du Plessix Gray, a biographer of the Marquis de Sade, has said that she suspects Mr Clinton, like De Sade, is only excited by risk and recklessness.
Perhaps that is so. Perhaps there are other forces at work.
In a book, The Clinton Enigma, author David Maraniss recalls several lectures Mr Clinton gave at the University of Arkansas back in 1981, after he was out of government, after suffering a defeat as governor of Arkansas.
Mr Clinton, according to Maraniss, told his class there was in all political leaders a struggle between darkness and light. He mentioned the darkness of insecurity, depression and family disorder.
In great leaders, Mr Clinton said, the light overcame the darkness, but it was always a struggle.
Mr Clinton's struggle with his own forces of darkness have been only too apparent.
The world can only hope that, in ordering a military attack on a foreign land in a moment of extraordinary personal and political stress, he has not succumbed to those forces in a fashion that would forever leave a stain on America's credibility.