One of the greatest failures of leadership by President Bush was in the days immediately following that darkest day, September 11, when he told Americans to get on with their daily lives, to go shopping and get on down to Disney World, to not let the terrorists win by changing our daily lives or living in fear. Could he have said anything worse?
Some of this country's greatest moments in history have come when our leaders have called us to duty, to give our labor, our hearts, and our service to the United States. Instead of calling on Americans of every stripe and persuasion, President Bush asked only that we not change, that we go about our lives as if nothing had happened.
But something did happen, and we as a nation have done nothing to change our country's course, to rise to the occasion, to show the world that we are still the beacon of freedom, the last great hope of liberty for oppressed people everywhere. Now, we are the oppressor, practicing Soviet-style renditions, replete with torture and the stripping of habeas corpus. And that's not even getting into the shame of Iraq.
On Dec. 5, Senator Barack Obama spoke directly to this failure of leadership and said exactly how he would bring about the change that this country needs. Please, read on...
In remarks delivered at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, Senator Obama spoke eloquently and decisively about how we, the people, can restore the greatness of America (Watch a portion of the speech).
The thrust of Senator Obama's plan is to increase the size of Americorps from 75,000 to 250,000 people. He will change the mission of the organization to better attack the problems that our nation now faces. But that will just be a beginning.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's service programs not only helped to pull the country from the grip of a horrible depression, they stood as a foundation upon which decades of prosperity were built. The WPA and the CCC built a lot of our nation, with Americans stepping up to provide for themselves, their families, and their nation. I walk on sidewalks bearing the stamp of the WPA every day. Even now, seventy years later, those sidewalks are a legacy of American service that cannot be forgotten. Our neighborhoods and communities were not built by private corporations seeking to maximize profit, they were built with the sweat of American labor, working for America.
It is time to rebuild our nation, and not just the sidewalks. We have our international standing, prestige, and image to restore. We have our Constitution, which has been bruised and battered and must be placed back upon the pedestal on which it once stood. We have our schools, our bridges, our transportation infrastructure - all of which have been neglected at home so that we could try building them in faraway places around the world. Will all of this work be left to unscrupulous contractors and cost-plus swindlers? Or will it be done by Americans, working for America? The answer has never been more crystal-clear.
My disgust with President Bush has been festering for some time, and his numerous and continuous failures of leadership have simply underscored how much our nation truly needs a leader. Instead of leadership, we've gotten division. Instead of hope, we've gotten shame. We need to change that, and Senator Obama is the man to lead that change.
Obama would call upon all Americans to serve, not just students or the unemployed. He would tailor programs to accomodate all sorts of expertise, using America's greatest strength - her people - to set about the work that so desperately must be done. For once, Americans could begin to come together over something other than jockeying for parking spots at the mall, standing in line for new consumer electronic products, or waiting for a table to open up at Outback Steakhouse.
Count me in.