Some of the scripture readings for Lent are intended to nag. So it was no big deal when I imagined myself standing on a pinnacle, and at my side a devil offering infinity if only I would hug word processors and embrace Merriam-Webster’s Third Unabridged.
This is only one way journalists are formed, and most of the others are quite respectable. The devil who tried to entice me was too late. I’m a born journalist, and I thank the Lord for providing the ink-stained genes.
The art of journalism developed slowly. Galleries and museums and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were alive centuries before journalists chronicled the lives, loves and talents of the artists. History has no beginning, but recorded history is recent. And it gets rewritten.
The Bible’s sense of history may be more secure in the Old Testament than in the New. If only The Associated Press had been there to verify the names and occupations and ages. If only The New York Times Magazine had interviewed Jesus about his childhood, while the New England Journal of Medicine annotated his healings. There might not be 2,000 Christian denominations if journalists had recorded all the facts, and they had been assured by The New Yorker’s fact-checkers.
If Peter Jennings and the Pulitzers had talked with founders of the great religions, discussions today would be on a different level.
Journalism has never changed more swiftly than it changes now, almost with every word that’s written. Where will the words be read? Maybe on a computer screen, maybe on the apparatus of an e-book, maybe on paper. What a surprise it is to the folks who a few years ago worried that a new generation of non-readers was at hand. People now will read anything. They read telephones, laptops, Blackberries, emails and games, and at least one political star reads her hands. People have fun with words. Goodbye scrabbled brains, hello Scrabble brains.
When I write about religion I’m still a journalist, but I’m working in a largely fact-free zone. No almanac tells me what Jesus weighed, the color of his eyes or what he crafted in carpentry. Of the millions of words he spoke, all too few are known. The shortage of facts kindles the imagination, as it did for Elton John, the singer and songwriter, who claimed to know about the private life of the crucified Christ. It is said that faith is a gift from God, while some laboratory-inclined thinkers are looking for it in genes. It is as mysterious as any talent, for music, painting, religion, writing or hitting home runs.
I thank the religion professionals and volunteers who keep the churches going, and the synagogues, mosques, temples and universities. One reason their work stirs awe is that it is accomplished with few facts held in common. God is a fact I was born with, like fingers reaching for a keyboard, and not a fact like the alphabet on the keyboard, which I had to learn. I forget God at times, even as I forget that God reclaims my memory a few drops at a time.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Freedom in the Church?
Condensed from Catholic Mind, November 1966. Catholic Mind was published monthly by America Press, New York. Editor-in-chief, Thurston N. Davis, S.J. I wrote this in the same year that America Press published the monumental Documents of Vatican II. The translation editor was Fr. Joseph Gallagher, who was then consulting editor of The Catholic Review, and the introduction was by Lawrence Cardinal Shehan, who published The Catholic Review. Unlike many Catholics,some of them quite formidable, I do not retain all of my 1966 opinions unchanged or even in Latin. I am still appalled, as I was in 1966, by attempts to suppress intelligent discussion of religion.
By A. E. P. Wall
Not long ago The Catholic Review published an article about an American religious sect that is neither Protestant nor Catholic. The sect figured prominently in the news at the time, and it seemed worthwhile to discuss some of its teachings – its denial of the Trinity, for example, and its preparation for a spiritual heaven severely limited to a group no larger than the readership of The Catholic Review.
We received anonymous letters insisting that we had no right, in this ecumenical age, to publish anything that anybody might consider critical of any religious group. The anonymous letter-writers, lacking the courage of their own convictions, would deny religious convictions to others.
Or, if they acknowledge the right of others to believe in something they would forbid any conversation about it. Some would suppress this right because they think any public consideration of religion is ill-mannered.
Others miss the point that it is possible for men [and women] of good will to agree on such broad principles as the need for charity and the power of prayer, while disagreeing on other vital matters, such as the validity of the Mass and divinity of Our Lord.
Two who hold opposite ideas about the real presence, about the Trinity, about the role of the blessed mother, about the virgin birth and the resurrection cannot both be right. They can be friendly, they can be enthusiastic about things they have in common and they can be dedicated to ecumenism. But on important elements of faith one is right and the other is wrong.
Devotion to the unity ideal does not compel anyone, Protestant or Catholic, to pretend that differences do not exist.
It would be a tragedy of eternal significance for a Catholic to shield his eyes from the elements of his faith in the mistaken notion that this will make him a “good guy,” an aimless but amiable semi-believer.
The church does not offer a religious smorgasbord from which a person may select the Our Father because it is in everybody’s recipe book, but reject the Assumption because it is too rich for his neighbor’s taste.
There is freedom within the church – and in some cases that freedom has been abused. There are restraints within the church – and in some cases those restraints have been abused. There is confusion today about freedom and restraints.
In the tense days early in 1941, President Roosevelt spoke to Congress about Four Freedoms. he presented these as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. These freedoms are fundamental in the American republic, although they are not absolute.
Freedom of speech and expression do not extend to the intentional publication of the slanderous, libelous or treasonable. Freedom of worship permits a variety of beliefs, but does not provide for the advocacy in the name of religion of bigamy or perversion. Freedom from want does not license theft, and freedom from fear does not permit the extermination of one’s enemies.
Each of these freedoms is alive in the church, subject only to the teachings of Christ, his apostles and their successors, and to the laws adopted to preserve and implement those teachings. These laws are subject to review, but they are neither adopted nor amended in hasty response to the demands of columnists.
[Some suggest] a sort of TV rating system to determine which sins have become too popular to be taken seriously. They would substitute consensus for collegiality, voting booths for confessionals and the Gallup Poll for the Creed. If Christ must be rated in committee debates, if Mary must pass the same test as Miss Universe, if the Holy Spirit must be made acceptable to Planned Parenthood and the Ten Commandments ratified in an annual election, some of the goals of our time will be met.
The price will be the death, not of God, but of the spirit of God as prime mover in human hearts. We approach God through sacrifice and selflessness, and all men have the freedom to make this approach.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
A faculty-student strike at Catholic University
It was springtime, 1967, when trustees of Catholic University of America pushed Fr. Charles E. Curran’s name and picture into newspapers and television news programs. American Catholics, enthusiastic about their church when the Second Vatican Council concluded in 1965, were unsettled when those trustees announced that Fr. Curran’s contract to teach in the theology department would not be renewed.
A student and faculty strike began on April 19. Fr. Curran was cautious about talking to the press, and did not agree to my request—or anybody’s request -- for an interview. Lawrence Cardinal Shehan, the archbishop of Baltimore, intervened to assure Fr. Curran that I knew my trade and would probably not misquote him. Shehan had the political skills to become a cardinal; he had the commitment to conscience to become a saint.
So the interview went on. It was published in the April 28, 1967 issue of The Catholic Review and in the June 1967 issue of Catholic Mind. It is published below. In 1986 Fr. Curran was dismissed from Catholic U. as a dissident. A 1986 decision by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Josef Cardinal Ratzinger—now Pope Benedict XVI—declared that Fr. Curran was neither suitable nor eligible to be a professor of Catholic theology.
The American Association of University Professors issued a report that said, “Had it not been for the intervention of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Professor Curran would undoubtedly still be active in the [Catholic University] Department of Theology, a popular teacher, honored theologian and respected colleague.” Fr. Curran accepted a full tenured professorship at Southern Methodist University, where Catholic students are said to outnumber Methodists by a wide margin. Here’s the 1967 interview:
By A. E. P. Wall
A happily harrassed Fr. Charles E. Curran poked his head into the doorway of a fellow priest’s room [on the Washington, D.C., campus of Catholic University of America]. It was the same head that had been poking its way into millions of living rooms during the previous few days.
Fr. Curran Smiled and extended a sinewy arm. The T-shirt he wore emphasized his slender build and added to the visitor’s quick impression that he was shaking hands with a senior counselor at a boys’ camp. But it was an associate professor of moral theology who spoke.
For Fr. Curran it was the end of the first day of classes following the spontaneous shutdown of the Catholic University of America by its faculty and student body. Did it mean the end of his own active concern about changes on the campus?
“I don’t think it can be,” the 33-year-old theologian said after stepping into more familiar priestly attire. “The issues involve more than just one person.
“We’re going to have to improve the situation in many ways to allow for better communication in the area of theology itself and in the academic processes here at Catholic University.”
The words came out quietly. For Fr. Curran it was a simple statement of fact.
He had another fact in mind and he leaned forward in a massive leather chair to emphasize what he had to say. The dispute that began when Fr. Curran was told his contract would not be renewed had nothing to do, he explained, with birth control or any other doctrinal matter. None of the student or faculty strikers drew the issues in terms of obedience or disobedience to episcopal authority. The question, it might be said, was purely academic.
“The unanimous reaction of the students and the faculty,” Fr. Curran said, “is proof of the fact that the issue was not doctrinal or moral. Disputed issues do not produce a unanimous reaction.
“In this question the academic community was united. You couldn’t unite this community on birth control. You couldn’t even unite the academic community on God, because the faculty is not made up entirely of Catholics.”
The issue was academic freedom, to be exercised in harmony with university statutes. As an immediate issue it was resolved when the announcement came that Fr. Curran’s contract would be renewed and that an academic promotion had been granted.
Now, Fr. Curran said, it is time to consider some long-range relationships. “These relationships will affect theology itself and the work of all theologians in the Church,” said the popular young priest whose height—more than six feet—could not be swallowed up even by the hefty chair.
“The lines of communication—you might call them conduits—with the bishops have to be opened up,” Fr. Curran said.
He paused and then added: “This is not a revolt against authority. Ever since Vatican II we have known that authority in the Church must be exercised in new and different ways.”
Does this suggest a delegation of authority?
“No,” Fr. Curran said quickly, “let’s compare it with the way society functions today and in the past. At one time there was a monarchical form of government in most of the world. Today there is a movement toward democratic government. If you look at the structure of business today, at the corporation, you find that everybody throws in ideas and that there is little one-man rule.
“The Council told us that each one has his own role to play. This involves a dialogue and a listening process. As a practical matter it involves the opening of channels.
“I think there is a realization that authority will be exercised in a different way in the future. This is indicated by the organization of modern society, which does not operate from the top down. Each one contributes. We stimulate each other to contribute to the good of all.
“This sort of thing has to happen in the Church.”
Fr. Curran spoke of a greater participation by everyone in the Church, and he was asked whether he envisions the election of bishops by priests and the laity.
“That has been proposed,” he said, “and it is not a new idea. But frankly, let’s realize that there can be problems in elections, too.
“One of the problems of today is a unilateralism, an overly simplistic approach that leads men to say, ‘All you have to do is . . .’”
Although he doesn’t see voting as a guarantee of right action or democracy as a blanket to smother all discontent, Fr. Curran does see an opportunity for increased participation in Church affairs by both the laity and the clergy.
What about newspapers, radio and television as external communications media?
“We can’t ultimately solve all of our problems on the front page,” Fr. Curran said. “We must create a structure other than headlines.
“In the long, hard pull such structures can be difficult. The danger is that some people say we don’t need structures. We do need them, and they must be flexible, adaptable to the needs of the times.”
A student and faculty strike began on April 19. Fr. Curran was cautious about talking to the press, and did not agree to my request—or anybody’s request -- for an interview. Lawrence Cardinal Shehan, the archbishop of Baltimore, intervened to assure Fr. Curran that I knew my trade and would probably not misquote him. Shehan had the political skills to become a cardinal; he had the commitment to conscience to become a saint.
So the interview went on. It was published in the April 28, 1967 issue of The Catholic Review and in the June 1967 issue of Catholic Mind. It is published below. In 1986 Fr. Curran was dismissed from Catholic U. as a dissident. A 1986 decision by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Josef Cardinal Ratzinger—now Pope Benedict XVI—declared that Fr. Curran was neither suitable nor eligible to be a professor of Catholic theology.
The American Association of University Professors issued a report that said, “Had it not been for the intervention of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Professor Curran would undoubtedly still be active in the [Catholic University] Department of Theology, a popular teacher, honored theologian and respected colleague.” Fr. Curran accepted a full tenured professorship at Southern Methodist University, where Catholic students are said to outnumber Methodists by a wide margin. Here’s the 1967 interview:
By A. E. P. Wall
A happily harrassed Fr. Charles E. Curran poked his head into the doorway of a fellow priest’s room [on the Washington, D.C., campus of Catholic University of America]. It was the same head that had been poking its way into millions of living rooms during the previous few days.
Fr. Curran Smiled and extended a sinewy arm. The T-shirt he wore emphasized his slender build and added to the visitor’s quick impression that he was shaking hands with a senior counselor at a boys’ camp. But it was an associate professor of moral theology who spoke.
For Fr. Curran it was the end of the first day of classes following the spontaneous shutdown of the Catholic University of America by its faculty and student body. Did it mean the end of his own active concern about changes on the campus?
“I don’t think it can be,” the 33-year-old theologian said after stepping into more familiar priestly attire. “The issues involve more than just one person.
“We’re going to have to improve the situation in many ways to allow for better communication in the area of theology itself and in the academic processes here at Catholic University.”
The words came out quietly. For Fr. Curran it was a simple statement of fact.
He had another fact in mind and he leaned forward in a massive leather chair to emphasize what he had to say. The dispute that began when Fr. Curran was told his contract would not be renewed had nothing to do, he explained, with birth control or any other doctrinal matter. None of the student or faculty strikers drew the issues in terms of obedience or disobedience to episcopal authority. The question, it might be said, was purely academic.
“The unanimous reaction of the students and the faculty,” Fr. Curran said, “is proof of the fact that the issue was not doctrinal or moral. Disputed issues do not produce a unanimous reaction.
“In this question the academic community was united. You couldn’t unite this community on birth control. You couldn’t even unite the academic community on God, because the faculty is not made up entirely of Catholics.”
The issue was academic freedom, to be exercised in harmony with university statutes. As an immediate issue it was resolved when the announcement came that Fr. Curran’s contract would be renewed and that an academic promotion had been granted.
Now, Fr. Curran said, it is time to consider some long-range relationships. “These relationships will affect theology itself and the work of all theologians in the Church,” said the popular young priest whose height—more than six feet—could not be swallowed up even by the hefty chair.
“The lines of communication—you might call them conduits—with the bishops have to be opened up,” Fr. Curran said.
He paused and then added: “This is not a revolt against authority. Ever since Vatican II we have known that authority in the Church must be exercised in new and different ways.”
Does this suggest a delegation of authority?
“No,” Fr. Curran said quickly, “let’s compare it with the way society functions today and in the past. At one time there was a monarchical form of government in most of the world. Today there is a movement toward democratic government. If you look at the structure of business today, at the corporation, you find that everybody throws in ideas and that there is little one-man rule.
“The Council told us that each one has his own role to play. This involves a dialogue and a listening process. As a practical matter it involves the opening of channels.
“I think there is a realization that authority will be exercised in a different way in the future. This is indicated by the organization of modern society, which does not operate from the top down. Each one contributes. We stimulate each other to contribute to the good of all.
“This sort of thing has to happen in the Church.”
Fr. Curran spoke of a greater participation by everyone in the Church, and he was asked whether he envisions the election of bishops by priests and the laity.
“That has been proposed,” he said, “and it is not a new idea. But frankly, let’s realize that there can be problems in elections, too.
“One of the problems of today is a unilateralism, an overly simplistic approach that leads men to say, ‘All you have to do is . . .’”
Although he doesn’t see voting as a guarantee of right action or democracy as a blanket to smother all discontent, Fr. Curran does see an opportunity for increased participation in Church affairs by both the laity and the clergy.
What about newspapers, radio and television as external communications media?
“We can’t ultimately solve all of our problems on the front page,” Fr. Curran said. “We must create a structure other than headlines.
“In the long, hard pull such structures can be difficult. The danger is that some people say we don’t need structures. We do need them, and they must be flexible, adaptable to the needs of the times.”
Saturday, December 26, 2009
How did we get this way?
Christians celebrate the mystery of the Incarnation, the merging of the divine and human in Christ Jesus. This revelation was ahead of its time, proclaimed by Jesus and his followers to a primitive world.
We know more about everything today. The math of Herod’s time was not the math of Einstein’s. Changes are huge in what we know about agriculture, literature, medicine, law, astronomy and everything else. That includes religion.
Many leaders and followers in religious groups insist that God allows the development of every kind of knowledge except knowledge of religion. This notion of a limited God limiting the devout in their pursuit of religion, while granting unlimited growth in every other field of human endeavor,is disabling.The evolution of religious knowledge is resisted, not merely to protect a perceived franchise but in defense of convictions which are powerfully held, even if powerfully wrong.
Jesus provided a stunning revival of divinity’s eternal, perpetual adventure in humanity, an incarnation as old as Adam,and older. Incarnation may be celebrated as an event and as a process.
It might be called, with a smile, the Inplantanation and Incarnation, the divine purpose apparent in everything that lives and grows. Evidence that living plants feel injury, move toward sunshine and respond to care has been studied by scientists for decades. Incarnation began before the beginning.
We know more about everything today. The math of Herod’s time was not the math of Einstein’s. Changes are huge in what we know about agriculture, literature, medicine, law, astronomy and everything else. That includes religion.
Many leaders and followers in religious groups insist that God allows the development of every kind of knowledge except knowledge of religion. This notion of a limited God limiting the devout in their pursuit of religion, while granting unlimited growth in every other field of human endeavor,is disabling.The evolution of religious knowledge is resisted, not merely to protect a perceived franchise but in defense of convictions which are powerfully held, even if powerfully wrong.
Jesus provided a stunning revival of divinity’s eternal, perpetual adventure in humanity, an incarnation as old as Adam,and older. Incarnation may be celebrated as an event and as a process.
It might be called, with a smile, the Inplantanation and Incarnation, the divine purpose apparent in everything that lives and grows. Evidence that living plants feel injury, move toward sunshine and respond to care has been studied by scientists for decades. Incarnation began before the beginning.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Toyland, starting in 1929
At Christmas time I think of some of my favorite toys. Remember yours?
At age 4,on the last Christmas of the 1920s, I received a Lionel electric train, my dad’s choice. That same year I was given alphabet blocks with letters and illustrations on them. The only one I remember is Z for Zulu.
Age 6 brought a small cast iron truck, one of my all-time favorite toys, and space in the garden for building roads.
When I was about 8 years old I prized a toy that made lead soldiers and cowboys. The toy melted lead, which I poured into molds.
Another favorite was an electric burning tool, which burned designs and drawings into wood or leather.
A chemistry set provided hours of fun. I discovered that I could buy some of my replacement chemicals at the drug store, which was cheaper than ordering by mail.
A toy typewriter required dialing one letter at a time, and it did not know how to spell. It was succeeded by a hand-operated printing press.
A battery-powered Morse code telegraph toy, with keys for sender and receiver, allowed for the transmission of secret messages over distances of many feet.
I once envied my pal John Adams, who received 10 different titles in the Big Little Book series for Christmas. That was a whole dollar’s worth of books.
By age 11 my favorite possession was a bike, which had a speedometer. I rode it a lot and for long distances.
That period included another favorite, a small radio in my bedroom. This was before the time of FM radio and television. I heard the famous newscaster H. V. Kaltenborn report the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. I heard Adolph Hitler harangues on the rising and falling waves of sound peculiar to overseas transmissions, his strident tones bringing yells of Sieg Heil from the crowd.
--Ed
At age 4,on the last Christmas of the 1920s, I received a Lionel electric train, my dad’s choice. That same year I was given alphabet blocks with letters and illustrations on them. The only one I remember is Z for Zulu.
Age 6 brought a small cast iron truck, one of my all-time favorite toys, and space in the garden for building roads.
When I was about 8 years old I prized a toy that made lead soldiers and cowboys. The toy melted lead, which I poured into molds.
Another favorite was an electric burning tool, which burned designs and drawings into wood or leather.
A chemistry set provided hours of fun. I discovered that I could buy some of my replacement chemicals at the drug store, which was cheaper than ordering by mail.
A toy typewriter required dialing one letter at a time, and it did not know how to spell. It was succeeded by a hand-operated printing press.
A battery-powered Morse code telegraph toy, with keys for sender and receiver, allowed for the transmission of secret messages over distances of many feet.
I once envied my pal John Adams, who received 10 different titles in the Big Little Book series for Christmas. That was a whole dollar’s worth of books.
By age 11 my favorite possession was a bike, which had a speedometer. I rode it a lot and for long distances.
That period included another favorite, a small radio in my bedroom. This was before the time of FM radio and television. I heard the famous newscaster H. V. Kaltenborn report the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. I heard Adolph Hitler harangues on the rising and falling waves of sound peculiar to overseas transmissions, his strident tones bringing yells of Sieg Heil from the crowd.
--Ed
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
When the elderly act like the youngerly
Sometime after her 80th birthday my mom asked for help with a questionnaire. The blanks she wanted to fill in were blurry and her reading glasses no longer helped. She said she had become the child and her son had become the helpful parent. In fact, little kids are just starting to grow, learn and become self-sufficient, but the elderly have stopped growing, are becoming forgetful and need help with things they’ve taken for granted. It is a time of remembered independence and unsettling dependence.
My older friends, even those who have the same medical concerns that I have, are different from me and each other, even as we all adjust to a world of canes, wheelchairs and pills.
Several times a week I trade emails with a girl I knew in high school. We were in the same graduating class in the peaceful days before Pearl Harbor. I was in touch with several boys I knew as far back as kindergarten and one by one they disappeared, all of them. I treasure other friendships, some recent and some going back a long way.
My greatest blessing is my children and their spouses, and grandchildren. I don’t really think of them that way—as a group. Each one is precious and personal.
For all blessings I thank God, who is said to be the same now and forever, but who doesn’t seem the same as when we were introduced in the late 1920’s. When I was four years old I went to bed wondering what God was writing down about my day. It had been explained in Sunday school that God recorded every jot and tittle.
Eighty years later I go to bed after reading my Kindle, not expecting that God is noting that I broke a coffee carafe this morning. I have some inquiries of my own, such as how come there are so many wars and so many hungry people and so much sickness? Maybe that’s because I’m a journalist, always ready to uncap my fountain pen and write down what I see and hear. Even when God answers one of my questions I know there’s no point in trying to get it past the city editor.
Almost everybody offers help. It is almost impossible for someone with a walker to open a door. Someone leaps ahead and holds it open. Everybody who uses a walker in public is treated like a cardinal or a rock star, for whom all doors are opened. Neighbors offer rides, share friendship, shovel snow, carry packages, phone reminders that the garage door is still open.
There are lots of jokes about getting old, because old people can be funny, and not just when they shuffle like comedian Charlie Chaplin or when they blunder blindly like Mr. Magoo. There are wisecracks about wasting youth on the young, who don’t appreciate it, and about old age not being for sissies. But stresses begin at birth, not on the day Social Security checks begin.
Babies are cute, but grandma doesn’t have to be burped.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Lyndon B. Obama at West Point
It was a little bit like listening to Lyndon B. Obama.
When President Barack Obama spoke eloquently of his goals in far-off Afghanistan that name popped into my mind—Lyndon B. Obama. Lyndon Johnson began, like Obama, earning the trust and admiration of the nation. Johnson also began his presidency as a man of high ideals. It was not his good intentions, but his rickety judgment that disrupted a generation of Americans.
While Barry Obama was smiling in his crib in Honolulu, Vice President Johnson was answering questions for journalists in an impromptu outdoor news conference a few blocks away. It is memorable for me nearly half a century later, when memory tends to be fickle, because a reporter’s cigar shed glowing ashes onto my jacket, where they continued to smolder.
Within a year or so, Johnson had become president, promising a war on poverty but drained by a war in Vietnam and the urge to escalate, like a gambler who doubles his bets each time he loses until finally he runs out of chips.
Is Obama’s idealism, which has held great promise for him and the country, blurring his judgment, which until now has been so cool? A nation in economic recession, with a creaky education apparatus, unresolved health care issues and a rusting system of highways, bridges, rail and air transport, asks such questions.
In his address at West Point, President Obama spoke of Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose family home isnearby, also on the Hudson River. Roosevelt, who began his presidency in the economic gloom of the Great Depression, was commander-in-chief when bombs rained on the island that would become Obama’s home. Hindsight shows that FDR didn’t always make the best decisions, as in the scandal of Japanese-American internment camps. He did not choose to go to war. The war came to him.
President Obama has more choices than FDR, plus whatever benefit there may be in hindsight, while an anxious world wants to believe in his foresight.
When President Barack Obama spoke eloquently of his goals in far-off Afghanistan that name popped into my mind—Lyndon B. Obama. Lyndon Johnson began, like Obama, earning the trust and admiration of the nation. Johnson also began his presidency as a man of high ideals. It was not his good intentions, but his rickety judgment that disrupted a generation of Americans.
While Barry Obama was smiling in his crib in Honolulu, Vice President Johnson was answering questions for journalists in an impromptu outdoor news conference a few blocks away. It is memorable for me nearly half a century later, when memory tends to be fickle, because a reporter’s cigar shed glowing ashes onto my jacket, where they continued to smolder.
Within a year or so, Johnson had become president, promising a war on poverty but drained by a war in Vietnam and the urge to escalate, like a gambler who doubles his bets each time he loses until finally he runs out of chips.
Is Obama’s idealism, which has held great promise for him and the country, blurring his judgment, which until now has been so cool? A nation in economic recession, with a creaky education apparatus, unresolved health care issues and a rusting system of highways, bridges, rail and air transport, asks such questions.
In his address at West Point, President Obama spoke of Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose family home isnearby, also on the Hudson River. Roosevelt, who began his presidency in the economic gloom of the Great Depression, was commander-in-chief when bombs rained on the island that would become Obama’s home. Hindsight shows that FDR didn’t always make the best decisions, as in the scandal of Japanese-American internment camps. He did not choose to go to war. The war came to him.
President Obama has more choices than FDR, plus whatever benefit there may be in hindsight, while an anxious world wants to believe in his foresight.
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