Posted by
Jim Hunt on Monday, December 08, 2008 8:00:00 AM
Yesterday was the 67
th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Today is the anniversary of Roosevelt’s famous Day of Infamy speech. For the first time since the war of 1812 a foreign power had attacked the United States on our own soil; an act that would not be repeated for another 60 years. Roosevelt was ready, he knew before Pearl Harbor that we had to get in to the war in Europe. He knew that Japanese aggression also had to be stopped. I am not going to go into the conspiracy theories about whether he knew about the attack in advance. But there is no question that he was ready and seeking any excuse to get us into that war. He correctly realized that we had to be in the war to stop Hitler.
Roosevelt had been president for nearly 9 years when the attack on Pearl Harbor came. As the first president ever to be elected to a third term, he knew exactly how to deal with all parts of the government and especially his congress.
Fast forward 60 years to 9/12/2001: President George W. Bush, in office less than 9 months, dealing with the first direct attack on our mainland since 1812. This enemy was more difficult, not a nation-state in the traditional sense but controlling at least one country with friends and support from many others. Unlike Japan or Germany, this enemy was openly declaring intent to continue to attack us at home and to deliberately target our civilian population.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt presided over the longest and most severe economic crisis in our nation’s history and was unable to get the country out of depression. He then led us to great success in World War II, we were not attacked again and although the cost was unbelievably high, we won World War II. As a domestic president, he was arguably one of the worst ever, saddling us with bloated government programs that last through to this today.
George W. Bush presided over significant economic growth during much of his term, despite having inherited a recession from his predecessor. However, his domestic failure to control spending or to control Congress in any way has led directly to the financial problems we are dealing with today. However, like Roosevelt, he has successfully kept our enemies away from our shores. On 9/12/2001, I don’t believe any credible prognosticator would have accepted the possibility that we would have had no further attacks on our soil over seven years later.
Regardless of his failures, George W. Bush, like Roosevelt before him, deserves to be remembered for his success at protecting the people of the United States from foreign aggression.
God Bless America