This article, "Radical in the White House", was written by Thomas Friedman for The New York Times. He wrote this article directly after the inauguration of President Obama, and wrote it to all those people that were finally excited about seeing a politician take office that they believed in. He wrote this article to try and explain his viewpoint on what President Obama has to do to reverse the course of our nation.
The main argument that the author is trying to get across is that it is going to take radical action to undo what the previous administration has gotten our country into. Friedman points out that he doesn't believe that he should be more radical one way than the other just radical in his mindset and actions. He wants President Obama to make the hard decisions and actually act upon all the talk and rhetoric leading up to his election and subsequent inauguration. Friedman knows that it isn't going to be an easy task and not everything is going to magically turn for the better, but he hopes that the President is going to have the unique mindset to tackle the challenges he faces.
I liked this article because it hit on several key points that I think people have forgotten in all the excitement and celebration leading up to President Obama's inauguration. We as Americans have to come down from that celebratory high horse, about how we overcame the prejudices of the past and elected an African-American as our leader, and come back down to the reality that our country is in its worst state in almost a century. In this article Friedman pointed out that it is a monumental task that the President is taking on and we cannot sit back and think that he is going to fix everything on his own. It is going to take action by all citizens for us to pull out of this economic and social downward spiral. Many expect for President Obama to come in and put in place programs that are going to immediately change the direction of this country, but we need to realize that it is going to take many years, well beyond Obama's administration, to permanently change and fix what we have unknowingly broken. Friedman is also correct in his analysis that President Obama needs to "swing for the fences", but also to know how many fences he can swing for and how many at one time. We can put into motion a series of initiatives that can fix our ailing economy and the lack of a national healthcare system and fix social security and solve the unemployment problem and pull us out of foreign countries, but these things cannot all be done at once and they cannot all be done with quick results. We are in this for the long haul and we better get used to the fact that the world is changing quickly and if we don't take steps now we will be an antiquated country that will fall further and further behind the rest of the world, which will ultimately lead to our downfall.
David M. Duryee
