Where's FDR?

Where's Reagan when you need him, talking about that bright shining city on a hill?

Where's FDR, telling the American people they have nothing to fear but fear itself?

Where's JFK, asking us what we can do for our own country?

Where's Teddy Roosevelt, commanding the nation and the world at his bully pulpit?

Instead, as we face what we're being told is perhaps the worst financial crisis in U.S. history, we have a parade of gloomy Gusses, from President Bush through John McCain to the various front men (and women) in the U.S. Congress. Not even Barack Obama has risen to rhetorical heights of any kind.

Come on, people, you are our leaders -- or want to be. So lead. Inspire us, motivate us, make us feel good again about being Americans. Instead of tagging on at the end of your remarks, as Bush did the other night, that we're great, we're Americans, blah, blah, blah, come out swinging. Bush didn't even end his address with "God bless America."

The 24/7 media fans the flames to higher and higher intensity, throwing around words like "crisis" and "Great Depression" like so many leaves in the wind. Just as every whispering breeze is now another Hurricane Katrina, now every bounced check is a "financial meltdown." We are certainly faced with a very serious economic situation right now, but I, for one, would like to see a little more reasoned discussion and a little less rush to daylight.

Where is America's leader at this time of crisis? Stand up, Mr. President (or Mr. Wanna-Be President), and tell it to us straight: "Look, ladies and gentlemen, we're in a helluva financial mess, and now we have to clean it up. There'll be plenty of time later to point the finger, but let's get going. Americans have met plenty of challenges like this head-on, and we've always won. We'll win again. You can count on it -- because we're Americans. That's why people flock to this country from all over the world 'cause in America you're the master of your own fate. So now we need to work out a plan that we can all live with -- not too much government, but more than some of you will like. But a lot less than many of you want, too. Keep your faith in your bank, and pay your bills. We WILL prevail. God bless you and your families, and remain confident that God will continue to bless the United States of America."

I'm not sure if any of our major candidates could deliver that speech with a straight face. Too bad. I wonder what President Palin would say.

It's all about me

Other than perhaps the day in 1963 when he famously declared himself a jelly doughnut ("Ich bin ein Berliner"), President John F. Kennedy's most remembered quotation came in his inaugural address of Jan. 20, 1961, when he urged his fellow Americans: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

It was the kind of uplifting challenge that symbolized the opening of the anything-is-possible 1960s and rightfully has been in the history books and on the lips of many Americans ever since. Baby Boomers even like to believe we've practiced what he preached.

Now a new Camelot is at hand. Comparisons between JFK and Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama have been rife for months. Expect them to increase. Just today a photo caption in the New York Times describes Mrs. Obama's dress as having "a Camelot reference."

Mr. Obama's charisma and his sunny prescription of hope in a fairly dismal time are viewed through the lens of the aging Left and their don't-know-any-better younger allies as a reincarnation of the youthful Kennedy bringing an end to the dark ages of the Eisenhower presidency. Students of history realize, of course, that it was the triumph of style over substance, but that's another story.

What a difference 47 years make though. Now Mr. Obama and his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, will spend the next five months turning Mr. Kennedy's deathless quotation upside down, offering every kind of government prescription possible and then some. In the age of no-responsibility, the new mantra is, "Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country can do for you."

Doesn't ring quite as true, does it? Oh well, don't worry: No one's going to drop that line in a campaign speech this summer or fall.