I had high hopes that Obama would emerge as a TR type President, but in reality it seems for Obama pragmatism trumps vision. Theodore Roosevelt was a visionary, who fought for what he perceived was necessary to manifest his vision for the United States. I think TR would view the Health Insurance 'Reform" debacle as an abysmal failure. When it was obvious that there was a problem with health and quality standards at American meatpacking plants, after reading Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle', he didn't ask permission of the industries' corrupt leaders to change things ... he pushed through the Pure Food and Drug Act over their screams and protests. When TR felt the need to protect America's dwindling natural frontier, he signed millions of acres into protected status, over the protests of industrialists, and until Congress voted to take the pen from his hand in terms of his right to protect lands. When JP Morgan came to the White House with a list of demands, TR stared him down and reminded him that the United States of America wasn't a junior partner to US Steel.
As I said, I had high hopes for Obama, but, like Bill Clinton, I fear he is more of a Grover Cleveland than an Theodore Roosevelt. Although Obama and TR both attended Harvard, I think that is where the similarities end.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Perhaps never in human history have the hopes of so many people for positive change in international relations rested on one person as they do on Barack Obama, who is to be inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States at noon Washington time.
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