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PREDECESSORS

and

PRESIDENTIAL PRESENCE

What is wrong with Barack?  He seems not to take to the dual role of the president. The Constitution, of course, specifies only one, that of “executive,” which refers to the head of government. However, the other, non-specified role is ceremonial,  that of a kind of “king,” or head of the nation, the personal representative of the people. It is this latter cloak that he seems not to recognize or wear comfortably. This is what the people want to see – and what they must see in times of crisis! It is a role especially inured in the modern presidency, along with the rapid development of audio and visual communication.

The government is powerless in the pitiful attempt to stem the flow of oil from the Gulf floor. On the other hand, government must and can be proactive in reducing the amount of damage wrought upon our coastal areas. Why has not a new “CCC”  been organized? A “Coastal Cleanup Corps” is the indicated move at this time. Just as FDR’s “Civilian Conservation Corps”  left its permanent stamp upon our wild areas, a modern CCC should be kept in force for all the years it becomes necessary to retrieve the coastal areas from their present and future ecological and economic devastation.

It is estimated that the collective economies of the Gulf region amount to a trillion dollars annually. That is a lot to lose. The establishment of a CCC would have these positive effects:

·       Many of the people populating those losing industries in the Gulf region could be inducted.

·       It could only help the stagnant rate of unemployment.

·       Coastal areas other than the Gulf can be included as they become affected.

·       The country as a whole would see government  taking care of the “possible.”

·       The president could take satisfaction from the fact of at least doing “something.”

Barack Obama’s oft-cited exemplar Abraham Lincoln was well aware of the two hats of the presidency. When his recalcitrant generals would not engage, Old Abe, the irrepressible autodidact, took to the books and taught himself military strategy. He prowled the battlefields; fired McClellan; hired Grant; and won a war. At the same time, he regularly visited wounded soldiers in hospitals around the capital and wrote to their families back home. While doing all of this, he resolved that a free nation could only be made whole by free people.

Come on, Barack, compared to the plights of Roosevelt and Lincoln, this is child’s play!