"The audacity of hope ~
"That was the best of the American spirit, I thought ~ having the audacity to believe despite all the evidence to the contrary that we could restore a sense of community to a nation torn by conflict; the gall to believe that despite personal setbacks, the loss of a job or an illness in the family or a childhood mired in poverty, we had some control ~ and therefore responsibility ~ over our own fate.
"It was that audacity, I thought, that joined us as one people. It was that pervasive spirit of hope that tied my own family's story to the larger American story, and my own story to those of the voters I sought to represent."
Obama thinks about what Benjamin Franklin wrote to his mother, explaining why he had devoted so much of his time to public service: "I would rather have it said, He lived usefully, than, He died rich."
Obama writes, "That's what satisfies me now, I think ~ being useful to my family and the people who elected me, leaving behind a legacy that will make our children's lives more hopeful than our own."
~ BARACK OBAMA, The AUDACITY of HOPE, 2006. THOUGHTS ON RECLAIMING THE AMERICAN DREAM, Random House, Inc..
Sunday, January 20, 2013
It was said that Franklin Roosevelt was, "The best newspaperman who has ever been President of the United States."*
" 'The White House school of journalism,' Raymond Clapper, one of the most distinguished of Washington reporters, labeled the entire operation.
"Every day there were two or three stories coming out of the White House. He intended to make the whole federal government his, make it respond to his whim and vision, he did so, and in that struggle he became this century's prime manipulator of the new and increasingly powerful modern media. Thirty and forty years later, politicians like John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson would study how Franklin Roosevelt had handled the press, it was a textbook course in manipulation.
"In another time he [Roosevelt] might have seemed overbearing, but in the midst of the Depression when the nation had lost its faith, it took comfort in the fact that he was so sure of his destiny and his role. His destiny would become theirs.
"He was the greatest news maker that Washington had ever seen. He came at a time when the society was ready for vast political and economic change, all of it enhancing the power of the President and the federal government, and he accelerated that change. The old order had collapsed, old institutions and old myths had failed; he would create the new order. In the new order, government would enter the everyday existence of almost all its citizens, regulating and adjusting their lives. Under him Washington became the focal point, it determined how people worked, how much they made, what they ate, where they lived."
~ The Powers That Be, David Halberstam, American Journalist, Pulitzer Prize (1934 - 2007)Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.
~* Heywood Broun.
Today, January 20, 2013, Barack Obama will be sworn in for a second term in office as President of the United States of America.
" 'The White House school of journalism,' Raymond Clapper, one of the most distinguished of Washington reporters, labeled the entire operation.
"Every day there were two or three stories coming out of the White House. He intended to make the whole federal government his, make it respond to his whim and vision, he did so, and in that struggle he became this century's prime manipulator of the new and increasingly powerful modern media. Thirty and forty years later, politicians like John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson would study how Franklin Roosevelt had handled the press, it was a textbook course in manipulation.
"In another time he [Roosevelt] might have seemed overbearing, but in the midst of the Depression when the nation had lost its faith, it took comfort in the fact that he was so sure of his destiny and his role. His destiny would become theirs.
"He was the greatest news maker that Washington had ever seen. He came at a time when the society was ready for vast political and economic change, all of it enhancing the power of the President and the federal government, and he accelerated that change. The old order had collapsed, old institutions and old myths had failed; he would create the new order. In the new order, government would enter the everyday existence of almost all its citizens, regulating and adjusting their lives. Under him Washington became the focal point, it determined how people worked, how much they made, what they ate, where they lived."
~ The Powers That Be, David Halberstam, American Journalist, Pulitzer Prize (1934 - 2007)Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.
~* Heywood Broun.
Today, January 20, 2013, Barack Obama will be sworn in for a second term in office as President of the United States of America.
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