Aaron David Miller: Obama's Missing His Moment, and America's
[Aaron David Miller is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His book "Can America Have Another Great President?" will be published in 2012.]
Woody Allen got it wrong. Ninety percent of success in life isn't just showing up; it's showing up at the right time and knowing what to do once you get there.
Barack Obama has gotten it half right then. Like most of our consequential presidents, he arrived at the right time; unlike them, he may have badly misread his moment, and America's....
Let's consider three undeniably great presidents, one a century. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt can lay claim to greatness because they had a chance to be great, and that chance derived from circumstances over which they had little control. To oversimplify, but not by much, Washington was there when a nation needed to be created, Lincoln was there to save it and FDR to shepherd it safely through the Depression and the world's greatest war....
Like other consequential presidents, Obama was a man on a mission in 2008. But he has allowed his agenda to obscure his capacity to see where most Americans were and what they wanted....
Besides, Obama isn't FDR. He wasn't as skilled, as grounded in the American experience or, frankly, as likable as Roosevelt, and so he hasn't come to serve as a repository of the nation's trust and confidence. FDR, like Obama, was hated by many, but he was also beloved by millions....
Read entire article at LA Times
Woody Allen got it wrong. Ninety percent of success in life isn't just showing up; it's showing up at the right time and knowing what to do once you get there.
Barack Obama has gotten it half right then. Like most of our consequential presidents, he arrived at the right time; unlike them, he may have badly misread his moment, and America's....
Let's consider three undeniably great presidents, one a century. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt can lay claim to greatness because they had a chance to be great, and that chance derived from circumstances over which they had little control. To oversimplify, but not by much, Washington was there when a nation needed to be created, Lincoln was there to save it and FDR to shepherd it safely through the Depression and the world's greatest war....
Like other consequential presidents, Obama was a man on a mission in 2008. But he has allowed his agenda to obscure his capacity to see where most Americans were and what they wanted....
Besides, Obama isn't FDR. He wasn't as skilled, as grounded in the American experience or, frankly, as likable as Roosevelt, and so he hasn't come to serve as a repository of the nation's trust and confidence. FDR, like Obama, was hated by many, but he was also beloved by millions....