The Quest For a Visionary President

Who Will Be the First Visionary U.S. President of the 21^st Century?

By S. R. Morris

History proves that, although we as a nation are visionary and unique, each century produces only 3 or 4 visionary presidents. In most cases, the rest are stammering idiots or mediocre at best.

I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s so I’m also a student of history. In my lifetime, I’ve seen idiots a-plenty and mediocrity, too. There is no political party that has cornered the market on idiotism or vision. I’ve seen Democrats and Republicans in both categories.

“I am not a crook!” stammered Richard Milhous Nixon back in 1973, the year before he resigned in disgrace. He told the nation he believed it was impossible for the president to be a crook because he “made the laws.”

Stammering William Jefferson Clinton said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” He was impeached in 1998 for lying under oath and obstructing justice.

Mediocrity was exemplified in the presidency of George H. W. Bush when candidate Bush promised, “Read my lips. No new taxes.” Later he did exactly that and history (and the nation) rewarded him with a one-term presidency.

So who were the visionaries? Well, I’ve only seen two in my lifetime. The first was a Democrat named John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In his inaugural address, he simply told the nation, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” I’m not sure if I actually heard that address, but I heard that phrase many times after that.

I guess the one speech that has resounded in my ears many times since he first uttered it in May 1961 was. “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

You had to be living back then to realize how crazy that sounded. It was obviously a ludicrous statement, or the statement of a visionary president. Although he did not live long enough to see his vision become a reality, he inspired a nation and set the stage so that the nation would all see his vision realized and take pride that effort. His goal was achieved on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon's surface.

The other was a Republican named Ronald Wilson Reagan. He was an American who believed in America and made others want to believe in America. He once said, “One of the worst mistakes anybody can make is to bet against Americans.”

But the speech he made in Germany in 1987 inspired not only Americans, but Germans and people around the world. He was referring to the Berlin Wall which had separated families and half a nation for decades following World War II. He simply said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

When he spoke the words, most folks didn’t think it would happen. It sounded like something that could change the cold war into an actual war, or perhaps it was the statement of a visionary president. It happened two years later in 1989, when he was no longer president. It was an amazing thing to see on television. One-by-one German men, women and young people took hammers and rocks and chipped away and broke down the Berlin Wall and nobody stopped them. In fact, the entire Iron Curtain that kept much of Eastern Europe under Communist control began to crumble and fall. It was visionary and a remarkable event to witness.

George W. Bush was not a visionary. He gathered a crew that convinced the nation to go to war on the pretense that Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction and was somehow responsible for the Al Qaeda attack on New York’s twin towers. It all proved to be the work of idiots.

Barack Hussein Obama is not an visionary. Despite all his stammering about a “change” and his  plentiful platitudes, Obama has failed to lead this nation for the past four years. Much of what he once criticized Bush for in the Iraqi war, he’s doing the same and American men and women are dying in a war with no clear ending in sight.

Am I the only American who yearns for a visionary president? A president who believes in America and sets a high standard, a goal for our future?

Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer and author, expressed the need of a president with a vision. He spoke last month, just prior to the 15^th Annual International Mars Society Convention in California. “If we had a president who had the will and the vision, the courage of a John F. Kennedy, we could have men on Mars before the end of this decade.” Zubrin is no wacko and neither were the scores of speakers who spoke at the society’s conference which advocates the exploration, colonization and settlement of Mars.

I’m not a pessimist, but I don’t see Mitt Romney as a visionary president. He has said anything I’ve heard from him that inspires me for the future. That being said, there does seem to be a real visionary in the wings. There is a young Congressman from Wisconsin who is on the ticket and has said visionary things. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Copyright 2012 by S. R. Morris