Bush needs own Turnip Day
By Peter Bronson • August 19, 2008
The nation is worn out by war and the president's approval rating is lower than Beelzebub's basement. His party is bracing to get the bum's rush from voters in the fall elections and both conventions are stocking up on balloons and confetti to send their candidates into the final stretch of the presidential contest.
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The year? Not 2008. That was 1948. The president was not George Bush, it was Harry Truman. And it was Democrats who were on the skids while Republicans, led by Cincinnati's Sen. Robert Taft, were ordering new furniture for the White House.
But at the last minute, something happened that changed the landscape and boosted Truman to an upset victory over Thomas Dewey, dashing the hopes of Taft and the Republicans.
Truman's political atomic bomb was Turnip Day.
In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Truman invoked Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution. He called Congress back into session to finish the people's business.
The Republicans had adjourned for summer recess and skipped town, leaving behind a record of obstruction and roadblocks to Truman's presidency. When they took some of the same Truman policies they had blocked, and put them in their own convention platform, Truman ordered the "do-nothing Congress" back to work on July 26, 1948 - "Turnip Day" in Truman's Missouri.
The peppery president quoted an old Missouri saying: "On the 25th of July, sow your turnips, wet or dry."
He planted his foot in the backside of Taft and the Republicans, and told them to get back to work on civil rights, Social Security and health care. "They can do this job in 15 days if they want to do it," Truman said.
If that sounds eerily familiar, it's because the whole story reads like a mirror image of 2008. President Bush's approval is low - but the approval of Congress is much worse. This time, Democrats obstructed, stalled and undermined the people's business.
With gas prices spreading economic flu, Bush begged Congress to finish its job and vote on offshore drilling to increase oil supplies and reduce prices.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - like Taft 60 years ago - refused. And now, with the Democratic convention just a week away, Pelosi and Barack Obama are shoplifting Bush's idea and claiming offshore drilling as part of their own policy.
It's time for another Turnip Day session.
If Pelosi and Obama are suddenly ready to embrace Bush's plan, he should make them vote on it.
Even if they refuse, Bush can't lose. In 1948, Taft and the Republicans defied Truman and accused him of abusing his authority. They refused to do anything - which only proved Truman's point about the do-nothing Republicans.
In a 1966 interview with Truman adviser William L. Blatt Jr. of Ohio, Blatt explained that Truman didn't have to run against Republican Tom Dewey, because "he ran against the 80th Congress, and this dramatized - this, it seems to me, was his whole strategy, the awful do-nothing 80th Congress."
Blatt, whose interview can be found at the Truman Library (http://tinyurl.com/6b342s), said the obstructionists were personified by Taft, so Truman "could attack the 80th Congress and blame most of the country's problems on the fact that they had not followed his recommendations."
Now it's déjà vu all over again.
When Pelosi and Senate President Harry Reid shut the lights off on Congress last month, their public approval was a record low 9 percent. By now, it's probably below zero. The media have already written the 2008 version of "Dewey Beats Truman" for Obama - and they could be embarrasingly wrong again.
When Truman left office, he was about as popular as heat rash. But over the years, Americans began to finally appreciate his tenacious spirit and stubborn refusal to sacrifice principles for popularity polls.
The same could happen to Bush, whose poll numbers are in Truman territory. As a lame duck with nothing to lose, he should take a lesson from Harry "the buck stops here" Truman and tell Pelosi:
"So now you're in favor of drilling? Then get back to work and take a vote. Make my Turnip Day."
Contact Enquirer columnist Peter Bronson at 513-768-8301 or pbronson@enquirer.com .
By Peter Bronson • August 19, 2008
The nation is worn out by war and the president's approval rating is lower than Beelzebub's basement. His party is bracing to get the bum's rush from voters in the fall elections and both conventions are stocking up on balloons and confetti to send their candidates into the final stretch of the presidential contest.
Advertisement
The year? Not 2008. That was 1948. The president was not George Bush, it was Harry Truman. And it was Democrats who were on the skids while Republicans, led by Cincinnati's Sen. Robert Taft, were ordering new furniture for the White House.
But at the last minute, something happened that changed the landscape and boosted Truman to an upset victory over Thomas Dewey, dashing the hopes of Taft and the Republicans.
Truman's political atomic bomb was Turnip Day.
In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Truman invoked Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution. He called Congress back into session to finish the people's business.
The Republicans had adjourned for summer recess and skipped town, leaving behind a record of obstruction and roadblocks to Truman's presidency. When they took some of the same Truman policies they had blocked, and put them in their own convention platform, Truman ordered the "do-nothing Congress" back to work on July 26, 1948 - "Turnip Day" in Truman's Missouri.
The peppery president quoted an old Missouri saying: "On the 25th of July, sow your turnips, wet or dry."
He planted his foot in the backside of Taft and the Republicans, and told them to get back to work on civil rights, Social Security and health care. "They can do this job in 15 days if they want to do it," Truman said.
If that sounds eerily familiar, it's because the whole story reads like a mirror image of 2008. President Bush's approval is low - but the approval of Congress is much worse. This time, Democrats obstructed, stalled and undermined the people's business.
With gas prices spreading economic flu, Bush begged Congress to finish its job and vote on offshore drilling to increase oil supplies and reduce prices.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - like Taft 60 years ago - refused. And now, with the Democratic convention just a week away, Pelosi and Barack Obama are shoplifting Bush's idea and claiming offshore drilling as part of their own policy.
It's time for another Turnip Day session.
If Pelosi and Obama are suddenly ready to embrace Bush's plan, he should make them vote on it.
Even if they refuse, Bush can't lose. In 1948, Taft and the Republicans defied Truman and accused him of abusing his authority. They refused to do anything - which only proved Truman's point about the do-nothing Republicans.
In a 1966 interview with Truman adviser William L. Blatt Jr. of Ohio, Blatt explained that Truman didn't have to run against Republican Tom Dewey, because "he ran against the 80th Congress, and this dramatized - this, it seems to me, was his whole strategy, the awful do-nothing 80th Congress."
Blatt, whose interview can be found at the Truman Library (http://tinyurl.com/6b342s), said the obstructionists were personified by Taft, so Truman "could attack the 80th Congress and blame most of the country's problems on the fact that they had not followed his recommendations."
Now it's déjà vu all over again.
When Pelosi and Senate President Harry Reid shut the lights off on Congress last month, their public approval was a record low 9 percent. By now, it's probably below zero. The media have already written the 2008 version of "Dewey Beats Truman" for Obama - and they could be embarrasingly wrong again.
When Truman left office, he was about as popular as heat rash. But over the years, Americans began to finally appreciate his tenacious spirit and stubborn refusal to sacrifice principles for popularity polls.
The same could happen to Bush, whose poll numbers are in Truman territory. As a lame duck with nothing to lose, he should take a lesson from Harry "the buck stops here" Truman and tell Pelosi:
"So now you're in favor of drilling? Then get back to work and take a vote. Make my Turnip Day."
Contact Enquirer columnist Peter Bronson at 513-768-8301 or pbronson@enquirer.com .
