Brother Rogers
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Can You Name This President?

By Brother Rogers

The president has a moral certitude and self-righteousness about him.  He has boldly exerted the influence of the presidency in both foreign and domestic affairs.  He is true to his beliefs and concludes that he is indisputably right.  His errors seem to narrow and stiffen his outlook on politics and life.

No matter what his advisors say, once he chooses a course, he sticks with it.  The president and secretary of state are often at odds with each other, disagreeing often in private, but seemingly united in public. The president has been described as lacking in imagination, curiosity and creativity.

Many believe that his wife is much more likeable.  She gets along famously with everyone who visits the White House, whether the visitor is a friend or foe of the president.

The loudest criticism of the president is that he got the country into a war not based on self-defense, but based on shoddy information, purposefully clouded to let the president have his way. In short, he invaded another country for his own purposes.  Once the war came, the American people rallied around the military, which defeated its inferior foe quite easily.  Once the capital city fell, the end appeared in sight.

But the president badly misjudged the will and pride of the enemy insurgents and their hatred for the United States.  As the war dragged on, the antiwar protests grew.  The administration admitted it saw no light at the end of the tunnel – no exit strategy.

Pain over the cost of the war and loss of life added to a growing sentiment of moral outrage in the country as the initial aims of the war now appeared ethically indefensible.  Two years after the first shots were fired and after the Congress had overwhelmingly backed the use of force, the U.S. House of Representatives, by a vote of 82 to 81, denounced the conflict as “a war unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States.”

If you surmised that this president’s name is James K. Polk, and that the war referred to above is the Mexican War, then you answered correctly.  Polk initiated the war in 1846 to obtain the California and New Mexico territories.  His secretary of state, James Buchanan (who later became one of the worst presidents in history), lectured him, “Your greatest danger is that you will be attacked for having a warlike tone.” Polk replied, “My greatest danger is that I would be attacked for having yielded to what was done by my predecessors.”

The American army, under Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, quickly defeated the Mexican army and seized the capital, Mexico City.  But after two years, antiwar sentiment grew, and a young congressman named Abraham Lincoln cut his political teeth by criticizing the Polk administration’s war.

According to Polk’s biographer, Polk’s wife, Sarah, “possessed the natural social elegance that her husband lacked.”  Sarah was very religious and insisted that Polk attend church with her.

The parallels between the current President Bush and Polk are not identical. Nevertheless, the similarities remind us that in another time when our country was divided by presidential action in war, Americans weathered the storm and recovered from a time of bitter partisanship.  The greatness of our country lies not in our unity, but in our ability to work out our differences through the greatest political system ever devised.

Brother Rogers is a guest columnist for the Starkville Daily News and works for the Stennis Center for Public Service.


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