W. Griffith's 1915 epic "Birth of a Nation, " but the film ultimately affirms Lincoln's recognition that compromise (including possible moral compromise) is an indispensable element of statecraft.

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Most importantly, it recognized as Congress has consistently done until this year the vital need for the MILSTAR program as an indispensable element of U.S. conventional and nuclear capabilities.

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Institutional investors, both public and private, hampered by conflicts of interest and impediments imposed by corporate interests, have failed to exercise the oversight that is an indispensable element of the free market system.

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Moreover, the planned commissions lack the one element indispensable to any genuinely fair proceeding an independent judiciary, both for the trial itself and for any appeal against a conviction.

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