Obama’s Jobs Speech: President May Have Found His Inner Harry Truman
With his jobs speech the president found a new voice—and perhaps his inner Truman, says Harold Evans.
Getty Images; AP Photo
Has Barack Obama found his inner Harry Truman?
The parallels are eerie. Truman in 1946 lost midterm elections, just as Obama did last fall. The Republicans took the House (their first time since 1930) and the Senate. Truman’s approval ratings tanked, falling much lower, at 32 percent, than Obama’s have done. Unemployment wasn’t the issue it is today, but inflation was just as scary, and one in 10 of the labor force went on strike in 1946.
Truman had a miserable summer. He was pretty well written off, as much of the country started to write off Obama after the debt-ceiling circus. People forgot Obama’s Osama coup. He was in danger of becoming a joke, just as Truman was. “To err is human," was everyone’s quip then. The Chicago Tribune took every chance to flay Truman, as The Wall Street Journal daily flays Obama.