The article," Radical in the White House", written by the Pulitzer Prize winning foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, Thomas Friedman appeared in the afore mentioned publication's January 21st edition. This was the day after Barak Obama was sworn in as the 44th president on the United States and the column contains Mr. Freidman's ideas on the direction he would like to see the new administration take. It would be easy to say that it was written for the readership of the Time's or America as a whole but the author may have pitched this one a bit higher. It may be for the eyes of President Obama himself.
Friedman's argument is that in times of relative economic and domestic security Americans look to society and there place in it for comfort and relegate Government to background noise. When there is an instance of a domestic or international crisis we tend to look to the government as a means of comfort and protection. He holds up FDR’s “New Deal “and LBJ’s “Great Society” as to examples of when government got it right. This column is a good companion piece to the first video shown in class. We need a radical change in how our government functions and the role it should play in our daily lives if we are to rise to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
