Pearl Harbor Day, 2008: Sixty-seven years after the Japanese surprise attack on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii, the anniversary went almost unnoticed Sunday. There were small ceremonies around the nation, including one held at the carrier Intrepid moored here on the Hudson. Two wreaths were dropped into the water to honor the 2,400 Americans who died at Pearl Harbor.
In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt, as he rallied the nation to go to war, called December 7, 1941 “a day that shall live in infamy.”
Interestingly, our president-elect, Barack Obama, has not forgot it. Nor has the economic crisis America faced under Roosevelt.
When Tom Brokaw asked America's new leader what is the difference between the challenges he faces and those that confronted FDR, Obama replied: “As tough as times are right now, they're nothing compared to what my grandparents went through, what the greatest generation went through. You know, at this point, you already had 25, 30 percent unemployment across the country.”
Local
Our new president is clearly a student of history and he will bring new perspective to the White House.
As he told Brokaw on “Meet the Press,” he is keenly aware of the impact the economic crisis is having on all Americans.
He gives high priority to a program to jump-start the economy with a huge transfusion of money. He wants to invest in a recovery effort that will finance enormous construction projects. He believes the auto industry has to be saved but he's against pouring money into Detroit without accountability as to how it's spent.
He had strong words for the top executives of the three major automobile companies. If they're “not willing to make the tough choices and adapt to their new circumstances,” he declared, “then they should go.”
Obama predicts that times will get worse. But he thinks that, like FDR, he can make things better.
Last Saturday, he promised to create the greatest construction program since the interstate highway system was launched a half century ago.
Like FDR, he envisions benefiting the middle class through projects like repairing roads and bridges -- and also creating new jobs in technology and so-called green jobs.
He said: “We need action and action now” -- hoping to get some of the program enacted soon after he takes office January 20.
Both Obama and Democratic congressional leaders advocate some system of oversight to make sure that bailout money isn't squandered. And the president-elect favors swift action to meet the mortgage crisis -- and help people, pressed by creditors, to hold on to their homes.
And, on this anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Obama did not neglect American veterans.
As he announced that General Eric Shinseki would head the Veterans Administration, Obama praised those who have fought our nation's wars. “I think about how so many veterans around the country are struggling, even more than those who have not served -- higher unemployment rates, higher homeless rates, higher substance abuse rates, medical care that is inadequate -- it breaks my heart.”
Even before he officially takes charge, the new commander-in-chief seems off to a good start. Aware of the sacrifice of which Americans are capable, he is exhorting us to help make the country better. And he invokes the memory of FDR, the president who told us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
I remember FDR. He spoke to the American people in his “fireside chats” with oratorical flourishes -- and my parents and grandparents loved him.
Barack Obama is calm and measured but his style may be more appropriate for this time. Certainly, his message resembles FDR's as he urges us not to fear the future but work to make our country better in the years to come.
