A Hard Look and a Prayer
The morning the Japanese sunk our fleet at Pearl Harbor Americans took a hard look at Franklin Roosevelt with one question on their minds: Is he up to the job? After the Stock Market Crash in 1929 the same hard look undid for Hebert Hoover and, during the Iran Hostage Crisis, it sank Jimmy Carter. Now people are giving Donald Trump the hard look.
Coming out of the gate Trump stumbled by saying ‘We have it totally under control’ and by tweeting a fig leaf, ‘Our team’s response has been perfect.’ But no President is perfect. And the meaning of an invisible virus in China is harder to see than the meaning of a Japanese warplane diving toward a battleship.
The pieces of the picture then fell into place and rolling up his sleeves Trump went to work, giving GM the greenlight to make ventilators – then everyone from furniture companies to tee-shirt manufacturers were making masks and scientists in labs from California to New York were testing drugs.
But physical needs don’t tell the whole story. President Roosevelt, stricken by polio when he was 39 years old, understood deeper fears grip the soul. On D-Day he made a simple request: ‘I ask you to join with me in prayer’ then led a prayer for the young men on Omaha Beach ending with ‘Almighty God: Give us faith in Thee. With Thy blessing, we shall prevail’ – and fathers and mothers listening to their radios in living rooms across America nodded, Amen.
A Hard Look and a Prayer
The morning the Japanese sunk our fleet at Pearl Harbor Americans took a hard look at Franklin Roosevelt with one question on their minds: Is he up to the job? After the Stock Market Crash in 1929 the same hard look undid for Hebert Hoover and, during the Iran Hostage Crisis, it sank Jimmy Carter. Now people are giving Donald Trump the hard look.
Coming out of the gate Trump stumbled by saying ‘We have it totally under control’ and by tweeting a fig leaf, ‘Our team’s response has been perfect.’ But no President is perfect. And the meaning of an invisible virus in China is harder to see than the meaning of a Japanese warplane diving toward a battleship.
The pieces of the picture then fell into place and rolling up his sleeves Trump went to work, giving GM the greenlight to make ventilators – then everyone from furniture companies to tee-shirt manufacturers were making masks and scientists in labs from California to New York were testing drugs.
But physical needs don’t tell the whole story. President Roosevelt, stricken by polio when he was 39 years old, understood deeper fears grip the soul. On D-Day he made a simple request: ‘I ask you to join with me in prayer’ then led a prayer for the young men on Omaha Beach ending with ‘Almighty God: Give us faith in Thee. With Thy blessing, we shall prevail’ – and fathers and mothers listening to their radios in living rooms across America nodded, Amen.