Special Delivery

Special Delivery 12.10.13




I was approaching my sixteenth birthday when President Franklin D. Roosevelt died, on April 12, 1945. My generation had known no other president up to that time. I have known none that compares to him since.

All these years later, in the closing weeks of a puerile presidential election campaign, FDR's words, the truth of them, and his majestic oratorical delivery echo clearly. "Nothing to fear but fear itself;" "This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny;" his devastating call and response that harpooned Republican Congressmen "Martin, Barton, and Fish;" and his nonpareil recitation of the resentment felt by his Scottie dog, Fala, to defamation heaped upon him by his master's Republican critics.

The contexts of these phrases and hundreds more delivered verbal knockouts to political opponents as obdurate and implacable as any in the history of the Republic. Roosevelt succeeded by persuasion. He promised to heal, he promised hope. He conveyed personal warmth that established trust to the extent that audiences reacted as though he was addressing them as individuals. When his manneer morphed into righteous anger over injustice, the listening public understood, accepted his reasoning, and, in vast numbers agreed. He employed the relatively new medium of radio to stage what amounted to political rallies in living rooms across the country.

His persuasive skills and personal appeal earned him election to the office of President of the United States four times.

President Barack Obama was credited with having remarkable oratorical skills in 2004 and 2008. Since then, the President has demonstrated remarkably few of them.

After Mr. Obama was elected in 2008, Senate Majority Leader McConnell announced that the Republican Party's strategy for the ensuing four years was to prevent Mr. Obama's re-election to a second term. True to his word, a noteworthy accomplishment in itself, Senator McConnell and his party have proceeded to obstruct the President at every turn with a zeal that borders on fanaticism. And, in the case of Tea Party Republicans, breaches the border.

Let me paraphrase one of the giants of contemporary literacy, by asking, "How's that workin'for him?" (McConnell)  Him and the country.

President Obama began by betting the farm on a universal health care bill. He got the bill, but lost the farm. The bill is more than 2,000 pages long. It's undecipherable to any other than the wonkiest. It does cover millions of previously uncovered Americans. Or will, if it ever goes into effect. But it has no provisions for controlling the docs, clinics, and hospital chains that rob Medicare blind, nor any to control Big Pharma with its arcane distribution costs and its stupifying prices. Affordable health care? Not with the AMA and Big Pharma on the loose.

Obama then proceeded to fall under the spell of the military component of the Military-Industrial Complex. Big Bullets, as they could appropriately be known, should be confined to quarters until the Congress of the United States accepts its duty to declare all of our wars, present and future. As it happened, they succeeded in mesmerizing the President into expanding the war in Afghanistan. Mezzing the Prez has deteriorated into yet another quagmire, in the same wise as Korea, Viet Nam, and Iraq, where we will have to return for the sake of Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, Bechtel and Dick Cheney.

The much discussed economic stimulus package was too small because the President was too timid, and perhaps too much under the sway of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, formerly of Wall Street. Mr. Obama should have included funds for public infastructure construction, repair and maintenance, and the employment such activity would have provided. Not employment for the middle class, although that segment continues to need help. The most desperate stratum, the one currently without visible signs of hope is that portion of the American underclass consisting of poor, uneducated youth, mainly black. The blue collar industrial jobs previously available will not likely return. The destruction of labor unions is almost complete. Where is their hope?

And there is the matter of the federal budget, universally regarded as a quaint anomaly, likened somewhat to your wacky Aunt Hattie, harmless enough if kept out of sight. The Republicans stonewall and then politicize, ignoring the surplus Bush turned into the present monstrous deficit writ even larger by the august solons occupying the majority of seats in the House of Representatives. The GOP, ever purveyors of creative fiction, are basing this year's election campaigns on tax and spend Democratic profligacy, a whopper taken in by way too many people.

Affordable health care, a vibrant economy, a managed budget, forclosing endless wars and foreign entanglements; all are still in play. Boy, when GOP greed gets a shot, it takes many more than four years to staunch the bleeding. FDR understood that, and we may thank our lucky stars because he did.

President Roosevelt faced malevolent and intractable right wingers and ran rings around them. President Obama faces opposition cut from the same cloth and may have the ability to attain similar results. He's had four years of on the job training. He's reputed to have unusual speaking skills. Now is the time to use them.

At long last, he must take a page from FDR's book. He must attract voters with his personality, as well as what he says and how he says it. He must articulate, convince and persuade, and he must begin on the big stage tomorrow night.

Imagine the consequences if he fails. Imagine a president named Mitt.



Rev Cox