September 06, 2006
Wednesday

To the editor,

"Incompetent" is the word most used when increasing numbers of Americans are asked to describe President Bush. This Pew Research finding is not surprising considering Bush's leadership failures.

He has been unable to motivate his administration or anyone else to get things done. Even when he passes off his responsibility onto others, be it business, local government or foreign lands, he fails in using the bully pulpit to inspire others to make things happen.

This failure at the helm stands in contrast to other presidents that have with few words inspired others to undertake even arduous personal tasks of minimal import to the nation. To wit, back in 1963 President John F. Kennedy jocularly suggested that chubby press secretary Pierre Salinger, demonstrate the physical fitness of the White House staff by walking fifty miles in twenty hours.

By Monday following JFK's offhand remark, thousands of Americans picked up the challenge and were off and walking. When European television showed images of these marchers, a walking craze swept Europe and on as far as Japan. To this day there is an annual Kennedy March in Sittard, Netherlands.

In a more serious matter of later times, lest we forget President Ronald Reagan's motivating words to one of this nation's most intractable enemies: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" And he did.

Of course, those were the days of men who successfully changed the tenor of their times; in these, Bush apologists fudge the times in diminution of the man's inadequacies.

Sam Osborne
West Branch, IA - USA

 

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