Canaries In The Echo Chamber

It's been said that any work of fiction written or performed after William Shakespeare, remains unoriginal. This is certainly true in the world of political reporting, where more often then not pundits and writers often share the same insights and reactions to news. However yesterday I came across an incident that suggests two such columnists may have attended the same briefing or overheard the same conversation at a Washington cocktail party. The synonymous idea is that President Obama needs to be more like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Both John Nichols of The Nation, and E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post, wrote columns extolling the necessity and virtue of BO becoming more like FDR. They both took the opportunity of the president's Thanksgiving Proclamation to assert this claim. Apparently, Mr. Obama, despite his eloquence, braininess, and mastery of the English language, comes up short in comparison to Mr. Roosevelt in word and deed. They extolled the pragmatic use of the former president's proclamations to lift the spirits of his audience and to energize them into helping him put his policies into practice. On the other hand, they both suggested that our current presidents' words were less than energetic, and bereft of any call to action to right this country from the ravages of the Bush years.

It's apparent that people are running for the exits now having witnessed the first year of our new presidents first, and hopefully last, term in office. It's quite a turn of events however when the very people who aided in the rise and coronation of Barack Hussein Obama now find him shallow and unequipped to remake the world into a progressive utopia. As Peggy Noonan points out in a piece in today's Wall Street Journal, "When longtime political observers start calling for wise men, a president is in trouble."