Move Over Herbert Hoover

The last couple of years have seen unparalleled economic carnage here in the United States. The housing bubble fueled by irresponsible lending and borrowing has burst taking the American dream with it for too many people. The underlying mortgage industry exemplified by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has deteriorated to the point the federal government may be forced to pony up trillions to keep the mortgage market remotely solvent. The stock market is in free fall as Wall Street’s pain becomes Main Street’s reality. On top of that oil continues its relentless climb to the sky driving up the cost of almost everything.
Locally, businesses are taking the hit too. One project after another has been shelved or abandoned for lack of funding and prospects. Just last week came word the much ballyhooed St. Andrews residential/retail project in Hyde Park is for all intents and purposes DOA as the developer can’t come up with the cash needed to fund the Route 9 sewer. That project alone would have translated into hundreds of jobs and workers spending their money locally.
While there are lots of explanations and rationalizations for our economic problems, there is one constant in all this. That constant has been President George W. Bush, who has stood like a deer in the head lights as the economy unraveled on his watch. Herbert Hoover can rest easy as George Bush has become the gold standard for failed presidents. Between Iraq and his domestic fiscal mismanagement, George Bush has wreaked more economic havoc and destroyed more wealth than a division of Islamic radicals could if they marched unimpeded from New York to LA.
While it’s true some of these economic chickens were coming home to roost eventually, it’s being made worse by the total lack of leadership on the part of the president and his administration. Leadership is very much about communication in a democracy. Anybody can stand in front of a TV camera and pat themselves on the back during good times. A real leader is the person who sucks it up and tells the American people the truth. They may not want to hear it but they need to understand the problem if they’re expected to be part of the solution. George Bush has been AWOL on the economy.
Teddy Roosevelt referred to the presidency as a “bully pulpit” to be used to exhort and inspire the citizenry. His cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Those words are as true today as they were in 1933. His leadership got this country through the depression and we desperately need that kind of thinking today.
It’s abundantly clear we won’t be getting that kind of leadership from the incredibly shrinking George Bush. At this point it appears Bush is mailing it in and will use his remaining time in office to jet around the world on Air Force One while the rest of us struggle to put gas in the tank. You had to love Bush and the other leaders at the G-8 summit last week snarfing down an eight course meal the night before convening a conference on world hunger. Talk about a disconnect.
It will fall to the next president to pick up the pieces and restore confidence in America. We need a leader we can believe in and someone who believes in America. We need to get it right this time.