IN HISTORY – AT 8:46 A.M. ET:  I was struck by the constant references to history in Netanyahu's speech before Congress yesterday.   Bibi knows history, unlike our current president, who only thinks he does. 

I was also struck by Bibi's powerful presence as a leader.  Like him or not, and there is a valid debate about the man, he filled the room.   We are reminded of another figure who filled the room on this day in 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt took the oath of office, the last president to be inaugurated on March 4th.  In 1937 he would be sworn in for his second term on January 20th, the inauguration date we still maintain. 

Leadership has a style.  The presidency has a style.  Peggy Noonan, one of Ronald Reagan's key speechwriters, once said of Reagan that he knew how to be president.  He had a largeness, a reassuring presence.  When Roosevelt spoke to the nation by radio, in his "fireside chats," he had that same reassuring presence.  Whether one agrees or disagrees with Roosevelt's policies, he had the instinct of leadership that even his opponents conceded.

They said of Harry Truman that he did the biggest things in the biggest ways and the littlest things in the littlest ways.  Our current president does everything in the littlest ways.  He is a petty, small-minded man, a local politician.  In his response to Netanyahu's eloquent address, Obama's smallness was on its usual display.  Bibi never uttered a word of criticism of Obama, but for months we have been embarrassed as Americans by the petty slights and insults toward the prime minister coming from the White House.  No comment was deemed too crude, no insult too severe.  A high official referred to the prime minister of Israel as a "chicken s..."  As one commentator said yesterday, he wished this president could be as angry at those who behead Christians as he is at the prime minister of of Israel, an important ally.

But of course this is the president who sent the bust of Winston Churchill back to Britain.  This is the president who refused to have lunch with the leader of France during a D-Day commemoration.  This is the president who went out and played golf only minutes after being informed of the beheading of an American by ISIS. 

Have you ever heard anyone say of Obama, "He knows what to do"?  Even his partisans shy away from that.

The party follows the leader.  Some, not all, Democratic responses to yesterday's speech followed the pettiness of Barack Obama, including Nancy Pelosi's childlike comment that she was "near tears" because she felt Bibi was insulting the intelligence of Americans.  No he wasn't.  He was showing respect for that intelligence by addressing the American people in a mature, thoughtful manner.

It's just that we're not used to that style any longer.

March 4,  2015