The Work That Remains to be Done

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"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Martin Luther King
Aug. 28, 1963

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The headline on a recent Pittsburgh Post–Gazette editorial read: "Fifty years ago common Americans made history."

I know what the headline writer was trying to say, but, if I had been there, I would have suggested changing "common" to a different word — "average," perhaps, or "ordinary." Because what happened 50 years ago today was extraordinary. There probably isn't a better word to describe it. (Uncommon may be appropriate, but it doesn't seem adequate.)

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial half a century ago today.

And, since last Friday or Saturday, there is no telling how many times portions of it have been cited by others — or, better still, the entire thing has been seen, thanks to the enduring miracle of film and video tape. There truly is a timeless quality to it.

Jenny Price of the University of Wisconsin–Madison News writes that "it still has an impact" on listeners today, and I'd have to agree with that. On several occasions, I have watched film of the speech with people who had never seen it before, and they never fail to be inspired by it.

It has been quoted countless times, probably most often on King's birthday but on other occasions as well — and I'm sure it will be quoted in hundreds, if not thousands, of commemorations of the speech's 50th anniversary.

Commemorations of King's speech have been under way at least since last weekend, and I am sure it already has been quoted many times in connection with that.

Thousands of people gathered to commemorate the occasion in Washington last weekend. I don't know if they listened to a recording of the speech or watched a video tape of it, but its message was very much on their minds.

On this day in 1963, King was the last of many speakers on what was a sweltering summer day in Washington, and he was introduced as "the moral leader of our nation." Most Americans probably knew who he was by the time he delivered that speech during the March on Washington. Those who didn't almost certainly knew who he was after he gave it.

I don't know how many people will be in Washington today. I do know that a lot will be going on there, and this milestone anniversary seems sure to draw a crowd at least as big as the one that heard King speak 50 years ago. As the Associated Press reported, "Marchers began arriving early Saturday. ... By midday, tens of thousands had gathered on the National Mall."

And that was more than four days ago.

The speech is known, as I say, as the "I Have a Dream" speech, and it is called that as if it was written and shaped and crafted lovingly for weeks, if not months, before it was given, which much of it was, but the truly remarkable thing about it is that the most frequently quoted portion of it was largely improvised. It was not part of the prepared text.

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"That part of his speech was an idea King had used in previous speeches," writes the Washington Post. "King, an experienced preacher by then, added it as he sensed the crowd's mood.

"As the final speaker on the long summer day, King wanted to leave the crowd revved up. To do that, he began repeating himself again."

That, the Post informs readers, is a speaker's device known as anaphora, and it can be effective. In the hands of a gifted orator, it can be very effective.

After all these years, the speech really needs no additional hype. In the last half century, it may have been quoted more frequently than any other speech from any period in American history — more often than John F. Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you" or FDR's "nothing to fear but fear itself" or even Lincoln's "four score and seven years ago."

As the century drew to a close, the speech was voted the top speech of the 20th century.

"For King," wrote Theodore White, "1963 was the year to move. ... [B]ecause it was a century from the Emancipation Proclamation and Negroes were still held in servile condition; because it was almost a decade from the Supreme Court's 1954 decision on school desegregation and the glacial pace of desegregation had been tragically disappointing; because all over Africa in the previous decade black men had reached self–expression under their own leadership; because ... the movement he led as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had found, as he call[ed] it, 'its undergirding philosophy' of nonviolence."

There was an interesting dynamic that could be seen at work in the black community in those days. Part of black America believed that patience really is a virtue, and patience would yield lasting results, but there were those who said patience had produced nothing, and they urged violence as a way of achieving what nonviolence seemed to have failed to achieve.

But King did not advocate violence when he spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial 50 years ago today — or at any other time in his life. His towering oratory, both 50 years ago today and throughout his life, sought to elevate all who heard it.

And his words continued to elevate, even after, about five years later, violence took King's life.

That was a truly dark time in America's history — a time when, ironically, King's message of nonviolent protest was briefly eclipsed by greater violence in America's cities as black Americans, even many who had supported a nonviolent approach, reacted to King's murder by lashing out in a blind rage.

But, in many ways in the last half–century, things have changed. Probably not as quickly as many hoped, but that is simply human nature, which King understood. Change comes slowly but surely — or, as King himself put it, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Historians disagree over whether King or someone else said that first, but it probably does not matter. It was a reflection of what King believed and consistently advocated.

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I grew up in the South, and, in my then–small Arkansas hometown, I remember seeing segregation. It wasn't as pervasive in Arkansas as it was in states in the Deep South, but it was there.

I was too young to read so I don't know if there were signs that said "white only" or "colored only" above drinking fountains or on restroom doors, but I remember seeing blacks confined to a single section in the balcony of the town's only movie theater, and, when I started school, my first–grade class was the first incoming group in the history of my hometown to be integrated, even though it was much more than a decade after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

Change does come slowly; nevertheless, as the New York Post wrote in a recent editorial on the anniversary of King's speech, "There's no denying the progress that has been made since 1963 — beginning with the fact that a black man is now president of the United States, something King himself likely never expected to see."

With reservations, I agree with that, but I also believe that one of the great failings of the Obama presidency — and I think history ultimately will agree with me — is that he has been preoccupied with electoral success and has used race primarily for political gain rather than to unite alienated groups.

Perhaps that would have been an unintended consequence of electing the first black president, no matter who he/she turned out to be. Maybe the first black president needed to be re–elected to thoroughly establish the historical credibility of a black president — most presidents, after all, have not been elected twice, and re–election is generally regarded as one of the marks of a successful presidency — and that, once that particular color line or glass ceiling (or whatever the current popular terminology for it may be) was shattered, the next black president could get down to the serious business of leading.

Perhaps that is how history works. I don't know.

I do know that today, when a member of any group is not permitted to eat where others eat or shop where others shop, it becomes a national news story, and the owner of the business is targeted for public ridicule and shame.

That is progress. Or is it?

It is also a national story when a celebrity admits using a racial slur decades ago and is viciously attacked as a "racist."

I definitely do not believe that is progress — I don't know anyone who can justify everything he/she said or did 30 years ago — and I don't believe King would think it was progress, either. His vision called for equal treatment for all, not preferential treatment for some and discriminatory treatment for others. He saw that all around him, and he knew it wasn't fair.

(Here is an example from my own life. It may or may not be relevant. I'll leave that to you to decided.

(My father went back to school at the age of 48 to study architecture. Up to that time, he had been fulfilling his parents' vision for him to be a teacher, but they were both gone, and he made the decision to study the subject that really had been his first love. I remember asking him about that once, and he replied, "Why should I commit the rest of my life to a decision that was made by an 18–year–old?"

(I think King would have a similar approach to someone who used a derogatory word three decades ago but has not made a habit of it.)

Regardless of which group benefits and which does not, any kind of preferential treatment contradicts the message of King's life. I think he would see swapping discriminatory treatment of groups not as moving forward but more of a lateral move — if not a step backward.

As a Southerner, I have frequently acknowledged the terrible things that happened here before I was born and even when I was a child, but I also know that many things have changed. There is still work to be done, but it was never the work of this region alone. Because of its more notorious past, the South repeatedly has been made the scapegoat for a nation's sins.

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As the Post says of the changes in America since King gave his most famous speech,

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"[he] would be pleased, but we doubt he'd be content to leave it at that. As he told those marchers: 'We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and the Negro in New York has nothing for which to vote.' In other words, civil rights was not exclusively a Southern issue."

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Over the years, I have had the impression that the South has been America's whipping boy for racism for which people in every region share guilt.

It is just (and I'm about to use a word here that one never hears associated with racism, but I'm going to use it, anyway, in the hope that you, dear reader, will grasp the meaning beneath the surface) a more honest kind of racism in the South.

I'll grant you that honest is a strange word to use in connection with racism, but, please, hear me out. I'm not saying that racism is, in any way, good or honest, but I am speaking about the ways racism is expressed.

My sense has been that there are many people in the North and the West and the East who are every bit as racist as anyone I ever encountered in the South — and I have been to most of the states east of the Mississippi River and several of the states west of it — but they keep their racism hidden, cloaked in the language they use and policies that they say are the same for everyone but really aren't.

I teach in a community college these days. I have many different kinds of students in my classrooms, and I can tell from what I overhear them saying to each other that they take it for granted that they will be allowed to eat in any eatery they choose or shop in any store they choose — or attend any school they choose.

I've been teaching at this community college for more than three years now, and, frankly, I originally expected to hear stories about students (or their friends or relatives) being denied the right to vote, but I haven't overheard anyone talking about that.

Perhaps, I have pondered, young people don't vote with any more frequency than they did when I was a young person. But then I think, that can't be true, not when you consider the credit that young voters received for the two Obama elections.

So maybe their silence on the subject means they take the right to vote for granted. If anyone was prevented from voting, that might spark a conversation, and, I conclude, if I don't hear anything, that must be seen as a sign of progress toward the fulfillment of the American vision, right? Well, perhaps, but, nevertheless, as the Post writes, "we still have a ways to go."

I still hear stories from some of my students about being stopped by the police for no apparent reason other than the color of their skin, and I know there is still work to be done. Profiling is only one aspect of it. As a crime–solving tool, profiling is essential, but, when misapplied, whether deliberately or not, it can breed distrust among people it is intended to protect.

"When we look at the high unemployment rates for African–Americans in our city, for example, or the way our public schools are failing our African–American children," says the Post, "we know the civil–rights challenges are real and continuing.

"Fifty years after King's dream, we should also have learned that none of these challenges are beyond the ability of an America serious about resolving them."

Joshua DuBois of Newsweek writes, "Instead of being in a state of perpetual struggle, an endless existential march, I believe there is far more evidence to support the idea that we are right on the verge of Zion. And the only thing that will stop us from getting there is the hopeless belief that we can't."

Here is what I believe: The reason why any progress has been made in the last 50 years was Americans were mostly united, not divided, when it happened.

It was with a shared sense of purpose that Americans have risen to any occasion and met every challenge — so far.

"United we stand, divided we fall" is as old as the Scriptures (albeit in somewhat different language), which may be why King, a minister, recognized its value for effecting true and meaningful change while most politicians do not.

King's dream is not dead. It has not been completely fulfilled, but enough of it has been accomplished to make Americans confident that we are moving in the right direction.

Yes, there is still work to be done, but America has always been a work in progress.

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Ich bin ein Berliner

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"All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner.' "

John F. Kennedy
June 26, 1963

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Most of the presidents who are remembered fondly by history were eloquent speakers, and most people, even those who don't know much about history, can tell you something about their greatest speeches.

Those speeches often were delivered before dramatic backdrops — like when Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the cemetery for those who were killed in that decisive battle. It's been more common in modern times, with the expanded ability to travel, for presidents to deliver their most memorable speeches on the very spots where important things had happened or were about to happen.

The backdrop can contribute much to the effectiveness of a speech, but it isn't as important as the message.

Some presidents, like John F. Kennedy, are remembered for several great speeches, and, while you will find many people who will say his "Ask not what your country can do for you ..." line in his inaugural address was his most memorable and you will find others who point to his commencement address at American University or his address to the nation during the Cuban Missile Crisis as being significant in other ways, I am inclined to think that the greatest speech Kennedy ever gave was the one he gave in Berlin 50 years ago today.

(I was both gratified and intrigued by L. Ian MacDonald's piece in the Ottawa Citizen. MacDonald wrote that, in "just seven paragraphs on the page and only nine minutes in a delivery continuously interrupted by cheering and applause," Kennedy "tautly defined the terms of the Cold War and correctly predicted the outcome.")

One could hardly imagine a more tension–filled scene. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly West Berliners, many of whom had been separated from family and friends when the Soviets erected the infamous Berlin Wall dividing East and West Berlin nearly two years earlier, were there to hear him speak. Many became emotional upon hearing the president speak of their tragedies.

And when he said, "Ich bin ein Berliner," it was an expression of solidarity with those West Berliners, the kind of solidarity Germans had rarely felt since the wall went up.

Stephen Evans writes for BBC News that Kennedy "connected with a people under siege" and gave them hope. I think that is obvious, even when one watches footage of the speech half a century later — although it does help to know the context of the times.

But it was also a statement of American policy aimed directly at the Kremlin. Many of the world's leaders had chosen a safe, nonconfrontational approach in their dealings with and references to the Soviet Union.

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But not Kennedy.

It seems to me that, for a speech to be considered great, it requires a certain amount of courage on the part of the speaker, and Kennedy displayed that kind of courage half a century ago today. Contrary to what many people believe today, Kennedy did not show that same courage in the civil rights struggles until he had no choice.

But, on this day 50 years ago, he took a courageous stand for freedom standing in front of the greatest symbol of oppression in the world.

In the early 1960s, there were those whose words and actions ignored the threat to freedom posed by Berlin and its communist occupiers. Kennedy refused to let the Soviets off the hook:

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"There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the communist world. Let them come to Berlin.

"There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin.

"And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin.

"And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin."

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With each repetition of the phrase "Let them come to Berlin," the crowd's approving roar grew louder.

It grew louder still as Kennedy spoke about freedom.

"What is true of this city is true of Germany," Kennedy said. "Real, lasting peace in Europe can never be assured as long as one German out of four is denied the elementary right of free men, and that is to make a free choice."

The Berlin Wall eventually did fall more than 25 years later. But I always found that remarkable because, in all the years I was growing up, I never heard Berlin referred to as simply Berlin. That sounded strange to my ear when East and West Germany were unified.

My parents had grown up calling that city Berlin, no East or West designation, but it was always East Berlin and West Berlin for my generation, and the city was divided by the Berlin Wall. As far as I was concerned, it might as well have always been that way.

I had no memory of anything else. The Berlin Wall might as well have been erected in the 18th century along with the Brandenburg Gate — which, incidentally, is where Presidents Reagan and Obama delivered their addresses in Berlin. (Obama, of course, could not give his speech in front of the Wall; it came down 20 years earlier. But Reagan could have spoken in front of it.)

So it was that, when the Berlin Wall finally came down, I watched the news reports in utter astonishment. I might as well have been witnessing the Second Coming; I fully expected to see neither in my lifetime.

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"Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free."

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When people speak of the Berlin Wall today, there is a tendency to give credit for its fall to Ronald Reagan, and I concede that he deserves his share of the credit — but not all of it. I believe that each of the seven American presidents who served during the wall's existence made his own contribution to the eventual outcome. Freedom and democracy prevailed over communism because, when all is said and done, that is the better way for man to live, and each of those American presidents were committed to that principle.

But it was Kennedy's speech 50 years ago today that truly set the tone for America's policy in that part of the world.

And it re–established America as a champion of freedom everywhere.

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Clint Eastwood

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Let me be very clear about this.

Clint Eastwood has never been my favorite actor.

I've seen many of his movies over the years. Some I have liked better than others.

But that is the thing, you see. I've never regarded Eastwood as anything other than an actor. Oh, I know he was mayor of a small town south of San Francisco for a couple of years in the 1980s, but he's not an actor/entertainer/politician like George Murphy or Arnold Schwarzenegger — or Ronald Reagan.

Politically, Eastwood has always leaned toward the Republican Party, but he has often taken positions that were at odds with the GOP. In 1974, he told Playboy that he was a "political nothing ... a moderate," and, 23 years later, he told Playboy he was a libertarian.

He supports a number of things that most Republicans do not — he's pro–choice and a supporter of same–sex marriage. He has endorsed Democrats and liberals in the past.

In 2008, though, he endorsed John McCain for president so it really shouldn't be surprising that he has endorsed Mitt Romney this year. (It may be disappointing to some diehard Democrats, but it really couldn't be surprising.)

Politically, I suppose, Clint Eastwood is a bit of an enigma to many people — and his "speech" to the Republican National Convention last week is something of an enigma as well.

Before that performance, I guess a lot of folks expected him to be the tough guy he has often been in his movies when he came out on the stage. Instead, what they got was something of a comedy routine.

To be honest, the thought that went through my mind was that only Eastwood could do this and get away with it — kind of like when Henry Fonda played the really bad guy in "Once Upon a Time in the West."

Fonda had always been the good guy, never the villain. The role was such an extreme reversal that Fonda made the character seem even more menacing, more terrifying than he would have been in anyone else's hands.

For many moviegoers, it was as if Fonda had been captured by the body snatchers, and a mean, vicious person who looked and sounded like Fonda had been left in his place.

Even before Eastwood took the stage, I had decided not to judge his performance as I would a career politician. Consequently, I was not expecting him to deliver a traditional convention speech.

But, apparently, some folks were — and I've been amused to watch their horrified responses.

The usually verbose Rachel Maddow was, seemingly, at a loss for words, finally labeling Eastwood's presentation as "the weirdest thing I've ever seen at a political convention in my entire life."

And MSNBC's uber leftist evening anchor Ed Schultz moaned sanctimoniously about how Eastwood's routine was "demeaning" to the presidency.

Seems to me Schultz really ought to be more concerned about what demeans journalism.

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The Challenge to 'Tear Down This Wall'

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"General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Ronald Reagan
June 12, 1987

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Presidents are remembered for saying many things.

In what tend to be their more honorable moments, presidents are remembered for statements they make in speeches.

In what tend to be their less honorable moments, presidents are remembered for things they say in more private and confidential settings or in off–the–cuff remarks they apparently think no one else can hear and often regret.

Perhaps it was that way with Ronald Reagan's remark about the "evil empire." Well, it may have been the kind of thing Reagan said only to confidantes and advisers at first, but by the time he was president, I think he believed the Soviet Union was an evil empire.

And he wasn't bashful about saying so.

Whatever else Reagan accomplished in his life, one must remember that his early training involved acting on the stage. The nature of acting is persuasion.

He often told a story about his early days as a sportscaster on radio. In those days, radio stations received the play–by–play of sports contests on the wire, and the station's own on–air talent would read it.

On one occasion, the wire machine stopped working in the middle of a baseball game, and Reagan had to ad lib. He came up with numerous creative ways for the batter to keep fouling off pitches until the machine was repaired and began providing the play–by–play again — at which point Reagan discovered that the batter had popped out on the first pitch.

His listeners would read no riveting accounts of the batter's dramatic duel with the pitcher in the next day's papers. No doubt many were disappointed.

When he was running for president, Reagan came across as being devoutly anti–Soviet Union. I must admit, though, that I often wondered just how much of that was for show and how much of it was genuine.

Some of it may well have been an act, but I was inclined at the time to believe most of it was genuine. While I seldom agreed with Reagan, I felt compelled to conclude that his rhetoric was more extreme than most mainstream establishment Republicans of the day embraced — at least, with any enthusiasm.

And Reagan's public speeches early in his presidency clearly indicated that the Reagan of the campaign trail was the same one who occupied the White House.

However, a lot changed while he was president. The Soviet Union's leadership was far more hard line when Reagan became president than it was at the end of his presidency, and, on this day 25 years ago, Reagan stood in front of the infamous Berlin Wall and called upon Mihail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's moderate leader, to "tear down this wall."

Considering that is precisely what happened shortly after Reagan left office, his words on that occasion seem positively prophetic — even though it was his successor, George H.W. Bush, who presided over its collapse.

His most devout admirers will tell you that it happened because of Reagan's policies. Perhaps it did. Or perhaps it would have happened anyhow. Reagan himself said communism would collapse under its own weight. It was just a matter of time.

It's fair to wonder, as Peter Robinson does in the Wall Street Journal, if "mere talk," as he called Reagan's speech, "made any difference."

Robinson, a former Reagan speech writer, concluded that the speech was a catalyst that changed the world. Well, perhaps it influenced the communist world, the world that existed behind Winston Churchill's famed iron curtain.

As far as I could tell at the time, the free world was unaffected. The free world paid attention to what was happening, but daily life went on.

Still, when the wall came down, I must admit that I wondered if there had been more to the speech than met the eye — or ear.

The call to "tear down this wall" had powerful emotional imagery behind it, imagery that was even more powerful when it actually came to pass.

Some people say it was Ronald Reagan's finest hour. Personally, I felt his finest hour was when he comforted a grieving nation following the Challenger disaster. At the time, I guess I dismissed the Berlin Wall speech as grandstanding.

But I'll grant you that Reagan's speech 25 years ago today was probably his presidency's most memorable moment.

If that was grandstanding, it was grandstanding with endurance.

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Talk Is Cheap

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Today is Labor Day, and it is now little more than three days before Barack Obama is slated to give his landmark address on job creation.

He was, as you probably know, going to give his speech on Wednesday — but, as usual, someone in this White House failed to do the most basic of legwork, which would have quickly revealed that a debate between the Republican presidential candidates had been scheduled for that day.

In fact, it has been scheduled for several months, and it is taking place at the library that bears the name of the Republicans' 20th century idol, Ronald Reagan.

It took no special powers of prognostication to anticipate the donnybrook that would follow Obama's hasty and ill–advised announcement of the original scheduling of this speech — or to predict that Obama would be forced to back down.

Yep, a little legwork could have prevented this president from a totally unnecessary and embarrassing scheduling confrontation with congressional Republicans that he was sure to lose.

But it was really no surprise that this administration — in its leap–before–you–look fashion — didn't bother with the details. They would only get in the way of imposing The One's will.

Anyway, when he did lose that one — in what may have been the most predictable result in a lifetime of observing American politics — Obama moved his speech back a single day — putting it in direct competition with the first pro football game of the 2011 season.

It is typical of the ham–handed way this administration operates.

Apparently, now that Obama's presidency is clearly in jeopardy (I have felt that way for a long time, but now, even Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, who was one of the first to climb aboard the Barack Obama Express, before it pulled out of the station, concedes that Obama is "a guy in a really bad spot"), job creation has taken on a new urgency ...

(The fierce urgency of now.)

In fact, I can only presume that, from Barack Obama's vantage point, the unemployment crisis must have emerged from out of the blue, like the attack on Pearl Harbor — because it is usually only that kind of emergency that prompts a president to address a joint session of Congress.

Presidents, of course, speak to joint sessions of Congress when they give their annual State of the Union speeches, but, otherwise, an address to a joint session of Congress typically is given when the nation faces an unexpected emergency — like a Pearl Harbor.

A speech to a joint session of Congress — whether it is by a president or a foreign dignitary or someone else — is not the sort of thing Congress likes to allow very often. It turns the lawmakers' domain into a stage for someone else.

I don't think anyone disagrees that the joblessness crisis is a serious emergency — even the moral equivalent of war — but it has been far from an unexpected emergency, just an ignored one.

Consequently, I do not think there is anything about the current situation that truly warrants a speech before a joint session of Congress. A speech from the Oval Office would be more appropriate, I think — but, for some reason, Obama doesn't like to give speeches there.

The unemployment situation was an emergency 2½ years ago, when monthly job losses were in six digits — but Obama obsessed instead about health care and his first Supreme Court nomination. That was how he chose to spend his political capital — along with spending the first Labor Day of his presidency preparing to address the schoolchildren of America.

Unemployment was 9.5% in September of 2009 — it's 9.1% now.

Why wasn't it a crisis worthy of a speech to a joint session of Congress then instead of now?

Probably because he hadn't been president for a full year in September 2009, and he still enjoyed (to an extent) the traditional honeymoon relationship a new president enjoys. But in September 2011, he is about 14 months from facing an increasingly frustrated electorate — a majority of whom, as Dowd correctly observes, "still like and trust the president," but that isn't what a re–election campaign is about.

Obama was able to win the first time because he has a knack for fancy speechmaking. He promised "hope" and "change," and that sounded good to a lot of people.

But that won't do it this time. No matter how much the voters may like Obama, he will be judged by the results of his presidency. How much change has there been? In Reagan's words, are you better off than you were four years ago?

And job approval surveys suggest that most voters do not believe Obama has delivered because he has been steadily losing ground.

Talk is cheap for incumbents. For an incumbent's words to have any meaning, any value, they must be in harmony with reality, however harsh that reality may be.

It is not necessary for a president to have perfect political pitch, but if he and the voters are in sync, so much the better. To accomplish that, he must enlist the voters as his allies. He must take them into his confidence and explain to them why he believes certain things are necessary.

I have often felt that this president must be tone deaf — because, in virtually every situation he has faced since taking office, he has taken the position that is all but certain to arouse the wrath of the most people or his response has been slow and plodding.

To say this president has been disengaged with joblessness is to severely understate the situation. He has been disengaged on practically all things. The "Obamacare" legislation that stands as the president's signature achievement wasn't even authored by the White House. That responsibility was turned over to congressional Democrats.

But this president isn't just tone deaf. He's dumb and blind, too, the "Tommy" of American presidents.

I don't really have a choice about whether to listen to him on Thursday. I have a news writing/gathering class to teach on Thursday evening, and if my students ask me about the presidential address, I will tell them it is important for working journalists to listen to a presidential address.

But if it is still in progress when I get home — and it probably will not be — I will choose to watch the football game.

As I wrote the other day, I've stopped listening to him — unless it leaks out that he is going to announce something truly bold.

Otherwise, I'll pass. I have no desire to hear another State of the Unionesque laundry list of general (and mostly unrelated) proposals or a rerun of his 2008 stump speech.

Talk is cheap, Mister President. Let's see some action. Real action.

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Leadership? Or Showmanship?

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Barack Obama plans to address the nation tomorrow night about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The speech is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. (Central), after Obama returns from a two–day visit to Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, the president's fourth trip to the region since the oil rig exploded in April and triggered the events with which Obama and the government's emergency responders have been trying to deal ever since. It is said Obama will speak for about 15 minutes about the disaster.

This is a pivotal moment in the Obama presidency.

After nearly eight weeks of this, Americans have a general idea what's happening, and they don't want to hear an update. Well, that isn't entirely true, I guess. They'd like it just fine if Obama could tell them exactly how much oil is pouring into the Gulf every day. There seems to be a distinct discrepancy between BP's figures and everyone else's.

Beyond that, though, they've got a pretty good handle on what's happening. What they want to know is the course of action that will be taken.

What sacrifice, if any, will be asked of them?

Personally, I feel that was one of the great failings of the Bush administration. After the attacks of September 11, the country was in a common cause frame of mind and would have been responsive to a presidential call for a shared sacrifice — but Bush told a few Americans to prepare for war, and he told the rest of us to go shopping.

Would it have been necessary for American troops to remain in Afghanistan as long as they have if all Americans, those at home as well as those in uniform, had been urged to make a common sacrifice for a common objective?

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"Americans need to know that Mr. Obama, whose coolness can seem like detachment, is engaged. This is not a mere question of presentation or stagecraft, although the White House could do better at both. (We cringed when he told the 'Today' show that he had spent important time figuring out 'whose ass to kick' about the spill. Everyone knew that answer on Day 2.)"

New York Times

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Perhaps in the early days of his presidency, when Obama's approval rating hovered at astonishing heights — and at a point in his term when, technically, there was nothing (or, at least, very little) of which to approve or disapprove — Americans, many of whom appeared weary after eight years of George W. Bush's mangled syntax, were content to listen in admiration, as they had during the presidential campaign, to Obama's smooth oratory.

But those days are gone. The bloom is off the rose. So, to borrow a phrase from Joe Friday, just give us the facts.

There is a symbolic quality to this that is hard to measure. When a president engages in straight talk with the American people about a particularly vexing problem, he enlists their service in solving it. There is an incalculable value in that, but what it comes down to is this: people like to feel like they are part of the process.

Actually, a character like Joe Friday, from a popular TV series, provides an apt analogy for the Obama administration — in truth, for any administration. Modern Americans see their president on TV every day. For a time, they are enthralled, but there comes a point when they become disenchanted. When that happens, the negative perception begins to harden, and it requires something really dramatic to alter the downward trajectory.

You could say that John F. Kennedy reached a similar point in 1962, the second year of his presidency, when U.S. surveillance revealed that the Soviet Union was installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. When Kennedy addressed the nation, he didn't offer flowery language. He didn't try to impress the voters with his vocabulary and his extensive education. He told the American people how dire the situation was and enlisted their cooperation.

Engage us, Mr. President.

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Declaring War on Poverty

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If you look at an American history book today, you're likely to see Lyndon Johnson's name prominently linked with the Vietnam War.

There is certainly good reason for that. Like the mutually dependent tales of the Nixon presidency and the Watergate scandal, you can't tell the story of the Johnson presidency without telling the story of the Vietnam War — and vice versa.

Dig a little deeper in history's account of that administration, and you're likely to see Johnson's name mentioned in connection with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Indeed, Johnson was a major figure in those legislative acts as well, and it would be wrong for the history books not to mention his contributions to them.

It's interesting, isn't it, the things a president is remembered for — as opposed to what that president wanted to do when he took office? But the truth — as unpleasant as it often can be — is that the times define the president, not the other way around.

It's pretty well known that Johnson was an admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal," which should come as no real surprise since Johnson served in the U.S. House for the last two–thirds of FDR's presidency. But when LBJ became president, he had to lead a nation that was embroiled in a Cold War that never existed in Roosevelt's day. And the economy of the 1960s was in much better shape than the economy of the 1930s had been.

Johnson wanted to leave his mark on American daily life in a way that went beyond what FDR's presidency had achieved. When he left the White House, he wanted to leave behind a government that would offer to people not a handout but a hand up. He was ensnared by a war in a tiny Asian land few Americans knew existed, but he still had many domestic accomplishments, and he might well be remembered as one of America's 10 greatest presidents if not for that war in southeast Asia.

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Sometimes, I'm inclined to believe that LBJ may have felt more pressure to build on FDR's legacy than he felt to be worthy of being Kennedy's successor.

Nevertheless, on this day in 1964 — exactly six months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy — Johnson fired the first shot in the war on poverty.

He came to Ann Arbor, Mich., to address the graduates of the University of Michigan, and he took the opportunity to call upon them — and the rest of America's citizens — "to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society."

The "Great Society." That, Johnson apparently believed, would be the phrase that would conjure up memories of his presidency for future generations. The way "New Deal" summoned memories of FDR and the way "New Frontier" reminded listeners of JFK.

He pursued that goal because he had been personally touched by poverty when he was young in central Texas, touched by it in ways that patricians like Roosevelt and Kennedy never could have been.

He did not pursue it because powerful lobbyists encouraged him to do so. There are no lobbyists for the poor, the homeless, the uneducated. Nor were there many votes to be gained from legislation aimed at helping the needy.

He felt called upon to urge his countrymen "to lead America toward a new age." He genuinely wanted to help what the Bible called "the least of these."

Perhaps LBJ believed what Gandhi believed, that "[p]overty is the worst kind of violence." I don't know if he did or did not, but wouldn't it be ironic if Lyndon Johnson, whose name is cursed in the annals of history for America's long and bloody involvement in Vietnam, was driven in his quest for the Great Society by his revulsion to the violence of poverty?

"We have the power," he said, "to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will and your labor and your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society."

And, in the days ahead, Johnson promoted — and pushed through Congress — enough domestic legislative accomplishments — among them, acts that created Head Start, food stamps, Work Study, Medicare, public broadcasting and Medicaid; acts that provided funds to support the arts and the beautification and conservation of the nation's natural wonders; acts that encouraged a higher standard of living for all — to make half a dozen administrations successful in the assessment of history.

Eradicating poverty was a worthy goal, but Johnson was not naive enough to think that it could be achieved in a few years. He warned his listeners that "the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor."

America, he knew, would always be a work in progress, and there are many challenges today that Johnson could not have anticipated 46 years ago. But, because of his efforts, when Johnson left office, the playing field had been leveled dramatically. In less than six years, Johnson brought the nation's poverty rate down from 22% to 13%.

In his speech at Ann Arbor, wrote historian Theodore H. White in "The Making of the President 1964," Johnson "was describing ... all the uplands of the new civilization to which America could be guided."

And, yes, there was a clear upside to it for LBJ when compared to his predecessor. "Kennedy had demanded sacrifice," wrote White. "Johnson promised happiness."

I recall once hearing George Carlin making fun of the tendency in America to "declare war" on anything we don't like, and then he recited a list of such wars — the wars on cancer, crime, poverty, drugs, etc.

It was a funny bit, but I wonder, when I think of what Johnson achieved, whether it isn't necessary to call for an effort that is the moral equivalent of war on some things in order to bring the kind of serious attention and focus that is needed to make them realities?

Maybe it will take that kind of approach to finally rid the world of cancer. Maybe things like cancer can't be stopped until they are treated like the deadly adversaries they are.

And, perhaps, that brings us to another lesson from the Johnson/Vietnam years that can be applied to almost anything from the war on drugs to the prospect of a nuclear war:

Some wars cannot be won and must never be fought.

And some wars, like the war on poverty and the war on terrorism, are going to take a lot of commitment and sacrifice.

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LBJ's Game Changer

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My grandfather used to love to tell this story.

Grandpa was a Texan. In his retirement years, he belonged to a fishing club in rural east Texas, about two hours from his home in Dallas. The clubhouse was set up so that members and their guests could stay overnight, eat their meals in a big country dining room and keep their fishing boats and fishing equipment on the premises.

On the evening of March 31, 1968, Grandpa was at the fishing club. I don't know if my grandmother was with him on that occasion. She often came there with him, but I don't think she always did. Anyway, there was a TV in the dining room and Grandpa told me that was where he watched President Lyndon Johnson deliver a major speech on Vietnam — a speech that turned unexpectedly dramatic at the end.

It was a real game changer.

In his book "The Making of the President 1968," historian Theodore H. White wrote that there was speculation about Johnson's intentions within the administration that day but no certainty. He mentioned an anxious exchange between Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford and White House staffer Henry McPherson, who asked, "Clark, what's up? Is he going to say sayonara?"

The vice president, Hubert Humphrey, conferred with Johnson that morning, but when he left on a scheduled trip to Mexico City later that day, White wrote, he "was still not sure that the president actually meant to give up at all." (After Johnson withdrew, Humphrey entered the race and went on to win the nomination at a time when most delegates still were chosen by party bosses, not primary voters.)

The first lady's press secretary and adviser to both the president and his wife, Liz Carpenter, who died earlier this month at the age of 89, spoke with Johnson after his meeting with Humphrey. White wrote that "she felt in her bones that the [re–election] campaign was on."

I don't know if the first lady herself knew Johnson's plans. If she had any suspicions, she did a good job of covering. Two days before the speech, White wrote, "Mrs. Johnson had come to a women's group of politicians and pledged herself, personally, to all of them to do whatever was needed to re–elect the president: to go anywhere, stump anywhere, appear anywhere."

I was far too young at the time to understand the complexities of the issues or the times. I knew that my parents were opposed to the war and supporters of Gene McCarthy, a writer (poet, really) and senator, the man whose insurgent campaign for the Democratic nomination received credit for toppling the Johnson presidency.

I'm not sure if McCarthy deserves credit for that. The momentum of the times and the growing opposition to the war in Vietnam had a lot to do with it. As far as I could see, McCarthy mostly amplified public disenchantment, but he did so exceedingly well. His platform was primarily anti–Vietnam War, but as his former colleague, George McGovern, wrote on the occasion of McCarthy's death (using a reference that McCarthy probably would have appreciated), he was an orator. "The ancient Roman rhetorician Quintilian defined an orator as 'a good man speaking well.' " McGovern wrote. "I give you Gene McCarthy — a good man who thought, wrote, spoke and quipped well."

In hindsight, I guess, much of what the president said was predictable. His policies on the war weren't significantly altered in the speech. But then he shocked the nation and the world.

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"I have concluded that I should not permit the presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year. With America's sons in the fields far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office — the presidency of your country.

"Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."

President Lyndon Johnson
March 31, 1968

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With those words, LBJ ushered in a truly transitional year in America. A lot of years are labeled "transitional" — and, to an extent, many really are — but 1968 may have been the most momentous year in my lifetime. Less than a week after Johnson's speech, Dr. Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis. Two months later, Bobby Kennedy was killed in Los Angeles. When the Democrats convened in Chicago to nominate Humphrey, it was the riots in the streets that America saw on its TV sets — and remembered at the polls.

Those were probably the biggest stories in a year that seemed to have a new stunning development on a weekly basis.

And from that day until the day my grandfather died in 1969, on the occasions when my family met my grandparents at the fishing club, Grandpa would observe, as we sat down to eat in that dining room, that he watched Johnson's speech in that room with the owner of the fishing club, a fellow who was known to all as "Kit" Carson.

Whenever Grandpa mentioned Johnson's speech, it wasn't necessary to ask which speech he was talking about. Grandpa was a Texas Republican in the days when Republicans were in the minority in Texas. Oddly, his daughter (my mother) was about as far to the left as my grandfather was to the right. They were the embodiment of the generational divide that afflicted the nation in those days.

Anyway, when you acknowledge that Grandpa was a Republican, it is a logical — and accurate — conclusion that the only thing he had in common with Lyndon Johnson was their native state. Consequently, he was elated that LBJ would not be running for president again.

Well, by 1968, fewer and fewer Americans wanted Johnson to remain in the White House. My parents were glad he wasn't running again, too. In fact, shortly before Johnson announced his withdrawal from the race, Gallup reported that his approval rating had fallen to 36%, the lowest — to date — of his presidency.

It was already clear in January, with the Tet offensive that led Walter Cronkite to conclude that the Vietnam War was not winnable, that 1968 would be a year like no other, but Johnson's announcement really iced it.

And it seemed to set in motion a series of events that left America reeling. The extent may not have been clear until enough time had passed, but once that time had passed, White found the words to summarize it.

He observed that, after Johnson's speech, McCarthy, who had been campaigning in Wisconsin, spoke with many political correspondents, including the legendary Mary McGrory, with whom he "devoted himself entirely to poetry." He quoted Yeats and Robert Lowell and then quoted from some poetry he had written.

"There was little poetry in Washington that evening," wrote historian Theodore H. White, "for it was not part of the script of history that Lyndon Johnson of the Pedernales should be brought down by a poet from Watkins, Minnesota. Of Lyndon Johnson's evening in Washington, Yeats had already written:

" 'We are closed in, and the key is turned on our uncertainty.' "

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