DESPERATELY SEEKING ANOTHER HARRY TRUMAN

Boy, does this country need another Harry Truman.

When President Franklin Roosevelt died unexpectedly in 1945, Harry Truman came into the Presidency with very little preparation for the major decisions he had to make to end World War II.

He had to decide how to achieve a peaceful meeting of U.S. and Soviet troops as Germany fell. He had to anguish over dropping the atomic bomb on Japanese civilians. He had to create a strategy to "contain the spread of Communism." He had to institute the Marshall Plan to save Europe from falling to pieces. He had to keep the French from electing a Communist government. He had to develop a "cold war" strategy to deal with the Soviet Union. He had to save Berlin from the Soviet chokehold imposed in 1948. And, very important, he had to transform a war-bloated domestic economy into a peace-time economy without allowing the country to collapse back into the pre-war depression.

He had to do all that and more. And he succeeded magnificently.

With the Bush administration bumbling all over the globe, I wonder where we would have been today if the Democrats had nominated another Harry Truman in 2000.

Let me hasten to add that recent Democrats might have done even worse. By putting up effete, wisdom-challenged candidates like Al Gore and John Kerry, the Democratic party showed that it was not up to the challenges of the 21st century. (And do you think a nation led by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi could do better than George Bush? Would Hillary Clinton be the Democrats’ frontrunner if she were not competing with a motley crew of political midgets?)

Since George W. Bush was elected President, terrible things have happened to the United States.

Our homeland has been invaded by almost 10 million illegals. Nut cases routinely jump over the White House fence. Would these trespasses occur under President Truman, who prevented 5,000 Soviet tanks from invading Western Europe?

Would the U.S. have labeled North Korea, Iraq and Iran "the axis of evil" with a President who reserved his name-calling for daughter Margaret's music critics?

The Iraq invasion is about to explode into a massive Middle East civil war. Would there have been an Iraq invasion under the President who never invaded anybody? Who believed that a "pre-emptive strike" was a euphemism of "sneak attack"?

Would our traditional European allies be alienated under the President who rebuilt Europe with the Marshall Plan and saved Berlin with his famed airlift?

Our status as world leader has been lost because there is no one who follows. Would this have happened to the President who earned the right to be called the leader of the free world?

The exploding federal deficit threatens to destroy our economy. Could we ever have had a monster deficit under the President who was too practical to believe you could have guns, butter and tax cuts at the same time?

By encouraging globalization, our best-paying jobs are being exported. Would we be hell-bent on exporting good jobs under a President who loved and protected the American worker and his unions?

China and Japan have run up huge trade deficits and dollar currency deposits which threaten our monetary system and long-term prosperity. Could this have happened to the President that roundly defeated the then all-powerful steel industry in its 24-year war with the Justice Department over price fixing?

The Defense Department and its contractors have ganged up to fake bids, produce massive cost overruns, raise prices after contracts have been signed, reduce contractual quantities of everything from flak jackets to fighter planes and fake performance reviews. Could this happen under the President who, as senator, led the war investigating committee that uncovered all kinds of waste and irregularities in defense spending during World War II? (Harry caught bomber builder Glen Martin trying to pass off a bomber whose motors were too weak to achieve takeoff with a full bomb load.)

There's more to our current woes. Much more.

Ahhh, Harry, where were ye in 2000 when we needed ya?

(click here for a printable version of this article)