Theodore Roosevelt, the first President of the 20th century, came up with the term “Bully Pulpit” to describe his efforts to draw attention to emerging national issues that needed our attention, with him leading the charge from the White House, and the Presidency was never the same after that!
TR led the struggle against monopoly capitalism; for conservation of natural resources; for improvement of labor conditions; and for government regulation of our food and drugs–all as important national goals. He appealed to our “better angels” in his campaigns on these issues.
Franklin D. Roosevelt led from the “Bully Pulpit” on the need for government activism to deal with the Great Depression, and in getting us ready for the challenge of international Fascism’s threat to the democracies by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan.
John F. Kennedy led us from his “Bully Pulpit” on the need to deal with civil rights as a moral crusade, and also the significance of learning to coexist in the world, so as to avoid an ultimate war that no one could win during the Cold War era.
Lyndon B. Johnson led from his “Bully Pulpit” on the issue of civil rights, and also on the reality of poverty in America and the need to take serious action on these issues.
And now Barack Obama has used the “Bully Pulpit” to address the issues of gay rights and the role of race in our society, and what he has done is draw attention and stature to issues that have long been ignored or overlooked as too controversial to deal with on the White House level, but he has the courage and principle that TR, FDR, JFK, and LBJ had before him!
So Barack Obama, with all of the positives and negatives that we find in any President, will be long remembered for challenging our better nature with his leadership on gay rights and race. And it is good already that New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks and 2008 Republican Presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, have endorsed his message on race as recently as the time when this author is writing this entry!
Interesting post regarding the bully pulpit. Though I do not agree with Senators McCain or Brook’s assessment of Obama’s speech. As a matter of fact I do not agree entirely with President Obama or the media publicized approach to this issue. There are many half truths and unanswered question on all of this race issue.
I thought it was another excellent speech by our Pres! 🙂
Excellent article: http://www.winningprogressive.org/racial-profiling-is-a-present-day-reality-that-we-must-end
Random thoughts.
“Many respectable writers agree that if a man reasonably believes that he is in immediate danger of death or grievous bodily harm from his assailant he may stand his ground and that if he kills him he has not exceeded the bounds of lawful self-defense. That has been the decision of this court.†(Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Brown v. United States, 1921)
“A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds to a suggestion rather than to reasoning, to an image rather than an idea, to an affirmation rather than to proof, to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments, to prestige rather than to competence.†(Jean-François Revel)
“We do not live in the past, but the past in us.†(U.B. Phillips)
“…leniency toward criminals contrasted starkly with severity toward the law-abiding citizen’s right to defend himself or herself.†(Joyce Lee Malcolm)
Great article Rustbelt!
Also agree on the great article Rustbelt!
Oliver Wendell Holmes v Unknown author at Winningprogressive? Hmm.. now that is a tough choice…
“I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away….And I don’t want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African American community interprets what happened one night in Florida.”- President Barack Obama.
The President has effectively disqualified every single African-American from being a jury in a criminal trial where the victim was black and the defendant white/or Hispanic, because the African American community will look at these types of issues “through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.”
Robert: Enough. That topic is closed.
I second what Rustbelt said.
I third what Rustbelt said.
I find the Winning Progressive site to be a very information blog about politics. Here’s the information blog’s various authors: http://www.winningprogressive.org/about
@Leia: I have that blog amongst my favorites.
Rustbelt: So you can post a link to winning progressive this morning about an issue and yet you get to say its enough and that the issue is closed? I read your link, yet I cannot comment about it because you say the issue is closed? Closed only for me I see.
It’s close for everyone now Robert.
Yes. The subject is exhausted now. We’ve all expressed our opinions and we have all come to the conclusion that we will have to agree to disagree. Got more important things to do than go about this ad nauseum.
Well said Leia! 🙂
Agreed!