John Ibbitson: Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan - yet
[John Ibbitson is the Globe and Mail's Washington columnist.]
“These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes who helped end a war.” - Ronald Reagan, address on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day
“Friends and veterans, we cannot forget. What we must not forget is that D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and the selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century.” - Barack Obama, address on the 65th Anniversary of D-Day
Barack Obama's speech at Normandy does not compare with Ronald Reagan's.
Guided by the pen of Peggy Noonan, the 40th president used simple words married to an inspired cadence to evoke his deep, personal reverence for the men who fought in a war he watched. It was among the greatest of his performances.
The 44th president - distracted, perhaps, by the preparations for the Cairo address two days before; distanced, inevitably, from a battle fought long before he was born - resorted to clumsy verbiage, poor syntax and false echoes of Lincoln. He was not at his best.
Ronald Reagan remains, for Barack Obama, the epitome of presidents. This offends those who believe Mr. Reagan brought to the United States the scourges of tax cuts, deregulation and the dismantling of the caring state.
Mr. Obama's administration seeks to repair the excesses of the Reagan generation, to set America on a new course of collective responsibility - for the environment, for the young, for the ill, for the disenfranchised.
It is Roosevelt, critics maintain, who is the true mentor for the Obama presidency.
But Roosevelt has long been gone. Reagan - to steal from composer Aaron Copland on Lincoln - remains fresh in the memory of his countrymen.
And it is to Reagan, time and again, that the President turns.
He turned to him in the heat of the primary campaign, in January, 2008, when he said: “I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.” Hillary was not amused.
He turned to him last week, when he celebrated the 100th anniversary of Mr. Reagan's birth.
“President Reagan helped as much as any president to restore a sense of optimism in our country, a spirit that transcended politics,” he declared, with Nancy Reagan by his side. “President Reagan had the ability to communicate directly and movingly to the American people; to understand both the hardships they felt in their lives and the hopes that they had for their country.”
That's the nub of it. Ronald Reagan sought to change the way Americans felt about their nation. He sought to convince them, in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam and stagflation and the Iran hostages, that their republic was still in its youth, that greatness lay ahead, if the people were ready to seize that greatness.
Mr. Obama faces a similar, but even greater, challenge...
Read entire article at Globe and Mail
“These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes who helped end a war.” - Ronald Reagan, address on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day
“Friends and veterans, we cannot forget. What we must not forget is that D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and the selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century.” - Barack Obama, address on the 65th Anniversary of D-Day
Barack Obama's speech at Normandy does not compare with Ronald Reagan's.
Guided by the pen of Peggy Noonan, the 40th president used simple words married to an inspired cadence to evoke his deep, personal reverence for the men who fought in a war he watched. It was among the greatest of his performances.
The 44th president - distracted, perhaps, by the preparations for the Cairo address two days before; distanced, inevitably, from a battle fought long before he was born - resorted to clumsy verbiage, poor syntax and false echoes of Lincoln. He was not at his best.
Ronald Reagan remains, for Barack Obama, the epitome of presidents. This offends those who believe Mr. Reagan brought to the United States the scourges of tax cuts, deregulation and the dismantling of the caring state.
Mr. Obama's administration seeks to repair the excesses of the Reagan generation, to set America on a new course of collective responsibility - for the environment, for the young, for the ill, for the disenfranchised.
It is Roosevelt, critics maintain, who is the true mentor for the Obama presidency.
But Roosevelt has long been gone. Reagan - to steal from composer Aaron Copland on Lincoln - remains fresh in the memory of his countrymen.
And it is to Reagan, time and again, that the President turns.
He turned to him in the heat of the primary campaign, in January, 2008, when he said: “I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.” Hillary was not amused.
He turned to him last week, when he celebrated the 100th anniversary of Mr. Reagan's birth.
“President Reagan helped as much as any president to restore a sense of optimism in our country, a spirit that transcended politics,” he declared, with Nancy Reagan by his side. “President Reagan had the ability to communicate directly and movingly to the American people; to understand both the hardships they felt in their lives and the hopes that they had for their country.”
That's the nub of it. Ronald Reagan sought to change the way Americans felt about their nation. He sought to convince them, in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam and stagflation and the Iran hostages, that their republic was still in its youth, that greatness lay ahead, if the people were ready to seize that greatness.
Mr. Obama faces a similar, but even greater, challenge...