Posted on 11/17/2001 4:20:19 AM PST by stayout
November 17, 2001
BY THOMAS ROESER
We've been used to presidents who have all the answers.
That's too bad. Frequently, the best of them didn't. They simply knew where to go to get good advice. George Washington, for instance, who allowed Alexander Hamilton to put into place the financial structure of the nation. Washington's biographers agree that this Virginia planter knew little about the intricacies of finance. Washington went along with Hamilton, and it paid off well.
Abraham Lincoln confessed that often he felt controlled by events. He took every bit of advice he could get, juggled generals and listened to them--until he found one who knew how to fight.
Harry Truman was inestimably aided by smart people. He suffered through bad advice but soared in public estimation because at strategic times, he listened to good advice--such as the Marshall Plan.
Then there have been presidents who relied on themselves for many of the answers: John Kennedy, who disregarded much advice he received against the Bay of Pigs, and Lyndon Johnson, who figured we could have both guns and butter, could wage a war in Vietnam, and not cut back on domestic spending. There was Jimmy Carter, who thought he could put government in his in-box. He was an engineer, just like Herbert Hoover, who believed he could end the Depression by raising taxes to balance the budget.
We now have a president who clearly does not advertise that he has all the answers, who passes up media opportunities, who speaks with a twang in short sentences and with ordinary phrases. George W. Bush is no genius, but he picked advisers who told him that Americans were tired of giving a fourth of their income to the government in varied forms of taxes. He's no world strategist, but feels there should be an end to the arms race. He's not dumb enough to rely just on himself, but is smart enough to listen to others who counsel that he can strike a deal with Russia's President Vladimir Putin--as indeed he has.
In a sense, Bush is like Ronald Reagan--called a dumb actor who could call on so-called smarter men and women to make the big decisions. There are some who feel that too much is being delegated in the Bush White House. I don't think so. I wouldn't feel right about Bush deciding where the military should go in Afghanistan. I do feel confident about his choosing the right people in the military to make those decisions.
That kind of leadership must be working. By a vote of 61-35, Americans are glad Bush is president and not Al Gore, who made the country know he had all the answers.
It may have to do with Bush's plain-spokenness. It may have to do with his reliance on others who he says are smarter than he is, which gives the public a wave of reassurance, telling themselves that his kind of Reaganesque modesty ensures that he's smarter--far smarter--than they thought.
And it may have to do with Bush's courage--as when he walked out to the mound at the World Series where, despite all the protection, he could have been picked off. And he threw a perfect strike.
I once thought we could do better than Bush. I know better now. See, I thought I too had all the answers. I didn't. I'm smarter now. I'm with you all the way, Mr. President.
. . . I do feel confident about his choosing the right people in the military to make those decisions . . .. . . Bush's courage . . .
. . . I once thought we could do better than Bush. I know better now. See, I thought I too had all the answers. I didn't. I'm smarter now. I'm with you all the way, Mr. President.
Am I dreaming?
If you'd like to know more about Tom Roeser, he's on "Beyond The Beltway" which airs on WLS AM-890 in Chicago Sunday nights starting at 7pm. It can be heard in 38 states.
listen, you'll see Roeser isn't a liberal.
Did you know that? I did. I was at the same lunch at the City Club of Chicago with both of them.
Reagan was the same way...always telling us what a great people we are. After a while, you start to feel it. Optimists are always able to draw people to their side.
God bless President Bush.
Would these people look at the best orchestra in the world and call the conductor "stupid" because he has to use musicians to make the music he creates? Nope! Then how can they remove themselves from the obvious when it comes to President Bush? Simple, they are biased biased biased.
Thats Bruce Dumonts show. Tom is on right after that on sunday.
I haven't listened in awhile. When did they change his time slot?
I used to thoroughly enjoy listening to Roeser on WLS weekend mornings. Too bad he stopped doing that show. Loved his opening, playing Kate Smith.
This Bush fellow is the real deal. It doesn't take long to figure it out if one just has the common sense to pay attention. We got lucky! Gore almost wound up as president.
Classic. Well done.
Paid off well for the bankers! Thomas Jefferson understood finance too and disagreed with Hamilton.
"I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessities and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow suffers.
Our land-holders, too, like theirs, retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs but held really in trust for the treasury, must wander, like theirs, in foreign countries, and be contented with penury, obscurity, exile, and the glory of the nation. This example reads to us the salutary lesson, that private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagances. And this is the tendency of all human governments.
A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for the second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man.
And the fore horse on this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression." THOMAS JEFFERSON (Letter to Samuel Kercheval, Monticello, July 12, 1816).
To the contrary, President Bush is quite a genius. Perhaps this is what's sticking in the craw of Roeser (supporter of Keyes). I've always been impressed with Keyes knowledge and wisdom but he just can't seem to get along with people. An important tool if one wants to lead.
And sticking in the craw of liberals who wanted so desperately for GWB to be dumb. Much to their chagrin, President Bush has shown time and time again their mistake in hanging their hopes on that tired mantra.
Yes President Bush is quite good at picking advisors but what most don't want to admit is he is the one making the tough decisions. Taxes for example, he believes are morally wrong when made to become burdensome.
It doesn't matter that a word or two now and then gets slaughtered, or that he speaks with a twang as some might say. As a matter of fact it just might be part of the genius, keeping the naysayers off kilter.
He is a conservative.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.