A President Unplugged

On a recent episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, writer Jon Meacham was the featured guest. Does that name sound familiar? Meacham is an editor for Newsweek and the author of The American Lion, a non-fiction book about Andrew Jackson’s revolutionary presidency from 1829-1837. We recently read Meacham’s summary of his book in class from a Newsweek article titled “The Change Agent.” While the artifact for AIS mostly talks about Andrew Jackson and the changes he brought to the United States, Meacham’s interview with Jon Stewart brings up some interesting parallels between Andrew Jackson and today’s politicians.

In the interview, Meacham describes Jackson as “our first populous president, a man of the people.” Jackson was the first president to be a direct representative of the common voter, rather than the well-educated aristocrat. He was really the first “Joe Six-Pack” president. As a Tennessee man from humble beginnings with few political connections, he earned the enthusiastic support and backing of Americans who saw themselves in him. Jackson rose from the bottom of society to the top, and gave people hope that they could be anything they wanted to be.

Based on this, I think that Andrew Jackson is the perfect mix of Senator John McCain and President-elect Barack Obama. Like John McCain, Jackson was a war hero who later aggressively campaigned as a maverick politician. Jackson wanted to revolutionize the position of President of the United States, just as John McCain strove to do if elected. Both were tough men who didn’t take no for an answer.

But Jackson is also similar to Obama in a way that helped them both win. Jackson’s presidency gave hope to millions of Americans who weren’t rich or well-educated. He inspired them to believe that with hard work, anything was possible. When Obama won this year’s election, he gave that same hope to African-Americans, first-time voters, and other minorities. Meacham adds that Jackson is similar to Obama because “he had a core group of supporters who firmly believed that he would do anything for them…” He also cites Jackson’s “amazing connection to people” that Obama shares.

But Meachem does lament one big change in American politics that makes the Jackson era very different from Obama’s. “It’s frustrating we’ve allowed politics to get as ‘scripted’ as it is today,” Meacham told Stewart, citing about eight scandals that Jackson managed to survive, any one of which would have quickly ended a current politician’s career. Today’s scrutiny, he explains, is just too harsh, and the soundbites too scripted.

No doubt that’s one big reason why Meacham’s book on Jackson will be a best-seller. Call it President Unplugged.

ObamaTube

Barack Obama is taking the next step in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt tradition of finding new ways to connect and communicate with Americans. Roosevelt was the first President to make regular radio speeches that all Americans could listen to. These “fireside chats” revolutionized the President’s relationship with Americans through his personal, inspiring talks that made people feel like he was speaking just to their needs, rather than the whole nation.

Over the years, Roosevelt’s radio-talks have evolved with the personalities of different Presidents. Ronald Reagan initiated weekly Saturday radio addresses, in which the President gives updates and announcements. The party out of power (in this case, the Democrats for the last eight years) then gives a talk in response to the President’s address. But these Presidential discussions have become so commonplace in our country that hardly anyone listens to them anymore, or even knows what frequency they’re on. Barack Obama, however, is about to solve that problem.

Obama will be the first President to use videos and the Internet to release his weekly addresses. The President-Elect launched his first Democratic response speech on November 15th on YouTube, a video that has already received more than 600,000 hits. Obama’s goal is to revive the Presidential radio talk’s popularity by attracting millions of YouTube and Internet users who can access the videos easily at any time. Just as Roosevelt revolutionized the way the President communicated with Americans during the Great Depression with his “fireside chats,” Obama is doing the same with his YouTube addresses.

But this makes me wonder: does this change in communication for the President mean progress? Obviously, this is a breakthrough in terms of technology. Today, the Internet and television are the fastest ways to get the news, while in the thirties there was only radio. But have we made progress in terms of our President connecting with Americans? I don’t think so. Obama has simply gotten our country’s attention back up to the level that Roosevelt enjoyed during the Great Depression. But why has there been a sixty-year gap? Are we as a country guilty of tuning out the President’s messages after the “newness” has gone? Is that why other Presidents have failed? Or is technology moving so fast, our Presidents haven’t been savvy about keeping up? The truth is, progress and innovation aren’t enough. If you’re not a great communicator, nobody’s going to listen, no matter how advanced the technology you use. What our country needs today is a tech-savvy leader with the charisma and communications skills to connect. Let’s hope Obama breaks through again, in the tradition of FDR.

Barack and Rahmbo

Rahm Emanuel is about to be the first New Trier graduate to work in the White House as the Chief of Staff for the President of the United States. Emanuel, who’s from Wilmette, was the first cabinet member selected by President-Elect Barack Obama. He served as an assistant to the Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton, and is a Congressman from Illinois. But Emanuel is best known for his toughness, and he has a track record of being a strong, liberal Democrat. Even Obama is well aware of Emanuel’s harsh personality, as shown in this “roast of Rahm Emanuel” at a charity event in 2005.

But many people wonder: if Emanuel is so well known for being a tough liberal, and Obama wants to unite the country and get conservatives on his side, wouldn’t the Wilmette native be the wrong cabinet pick? Wouldn’t this crazy Democrat drive Republicans away from Obama? The new Chief of Staff explained why he was the right man for the job in a Wall Street Journal article on Saturday. Emanuel explained that during Obama’s Presidential campaign, one thing that gave him an edge over John McCain was his focus on the big picture for his country and idealistic goals for America. As the article stated: “We have an energy crisis, a health-care crisis…Mr. McCain tried to make this about small things like Bill Ayers. Barack made it about health care. The American people penalized the candidate who talked about the small things and rewarded the candidate who talked about the big things.” Obama wants to continue to stay focused on the big, idealistic picture, but his job as President-Elect requires a pragmatic decision-maker behind the scenes.

That’s where Emanuel comes in. With his no-nonsense, pragmatic personality, Emanuel can be Obama’s reality check when it comes to shaping each day he spends in the White House. Emanuel can work quietly behind him, making tough decisions about who the President sees, and who he doesn’t. Obama, in the meantime, can maintain his image as an idealistic man with big dreams for America. It’s a good match. Obama the idealist is well-served by a man who believes, “The American people are unbelievably pragmatic. Have confidence in their pragmatism. It’s the operating philosophy of our country.”

Freedom of Speech: Joe Takes It Too Far

When I think about the Constitution, the first thing that pops into my head is the First Amendment: freedom of speech, religion and ideas. Everyone over the age of six knows about this right. It’s a right our country holds in the highest esteem. But even though the freedom of ideas is crucial to the United States’ identity as a country of liberty, some people take advantage of this right by spreading lies and damning comments about others that aren’t true. Such was the case with Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe the Plumber, during a Fox News interview with anchor Shepard Smith.

Smith began by questioning an accusation made by Joe that Barack Obama’s presidency would mean “death to Israel.” The plumber from Ohio stated that he had said this because of the "shady" people that Obama hung around with, and things he said in the past. But Joe couldn’t name any of these anti-Israeli people. Partway through the interview, Shepard Smith directly quoted Obama, saying that Israel will always be an ally of the United States during his presidency. Joe took advantage of the First Amendment in order to send an untrue, dangerous message to all Americans. This makes me wonder: when does freedom of speech go too far, and should it ever be restricted?

At the end of the clip, after Wurzelbacher leaves, Shepard makes this point: “I just want to make this 100 percent clear. Barack Obama has said repeatedly that Israel will always be a friend of the United States no matter what…the rest of it, man, it just gets frightening sometimes.” Fear was not the goal of the men who wrote the Constitution and the First Amendment, but Joe the Plumber’s untrue, incendiary statement has degraded our country’s most precious right into something that is manipulated and distorted. And that’s a scary thought.