I know some of you are going to think I've lost my mind, especially considering how hard I've been on you liberals of late.
As I watched President's address to the nation last evening, I had an idea that I believe would help Mr. President's sagging credibility, and could help
to unite the country, and the irony is the idea came from a liberal...a president of the US, but a liberal nonetheless. Here's my idea:
Any of you old enough will remember FDR's old fireside chats.
For those of you too young to remember, or those old enough to want to warp back in time, here's an explanation of what the fireside chats were:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireside_Chats
The thing I find interesting, and this is where I get back to riding hard the liberals of today (yes, you
www.moveon.org
types, I'm talking to you). While FDR was a liberal, he wasn't afraid to take on Hitler and the Nazis and our other enemies in WWII. You liberals of
today could learn something from FDR. I think that it's the current democratic party's shift so far left that now FDR may be too far right for them that
caused me to leave the democrats.
For some history on FDR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt
Why do I think these "fireside chats" would help Bush? Because, as with FDR, he could rally the country behind him and help them understand better the
war we find ourselves in. He could talk plainly and calmly to the nation about the things he is doing. Now I believe this would have to be different
from his weekly saturday address (the ones presidents have done for I don't know how long now) in the tone and message (at least to a degree). The fireside
chat was just that...a "chat" with the nation. It would be done as if Bush were talking one on one with each and every American.
I know that FDR had some advantages that Bush doesn't have (as in radio being the only medium, and as the article linked to above points out, people could
hear the address from a neighbor's open window), but Bush has several things FDR never had...IPod's, Cable TV, the Internet, cell phones, etc. I really
think in this technological age a genuine "fireside chat" in the FDR tradition could gover over well today. That, however, is just my opinion
