A few American presidents have been called “The Great this or that”. The most recent was Ronald Reagan, The Great Communicator. After 6 months in office, President Obama is on the way to earning the title “The Great Compromiser”.

Polls show that more and more of voters who gave him an overwhelming electoral victory are becoming disenchanted. Most bought his message of bringing change to the capitol, believed his claim of devotion to lofty principles and willingness to stand-up against entrenched Washington interests. An increasing number of Americans believe he has fallen far short of their expectations. Obama’s principles seem to consist of vague generalities, “World Peace”, “Friendship among Nations”, the earth’s people “Getting along with one another,”Working with Congress” and similar shibboleths.

Much of the legislation he has submitted to Congress he has allowed be watered down to something far from what it started out to accomplish. He has substituted platitudes for principles.

What has distinguished great presidents from the mediocre has been their willingness to battle hard for what they believed was best for the nation. There’s a reason Theodore Roosevelt is the only 20th century President whose face is carved into Mount Rushmore. TR came to believe that government had the right to moderate the excesses of free enterprise. Although his exercises of power seem modest to us now — the fight to abolish child labor, the breakup of great monopolies, the Pure Food and Drug Act, the meat-inspection and industrial-safety laws—it was all bitterly opposed at the time. They became law often by the narrowest of margins.

So far Obama has shown no willingness to emulate him. Obama seeks to get legislation passed by compromise, even if the

results are a laws so weak, no one cares much if it passes or not. Had Teddy been like Obama, he could have gotten his precedent setting laws through congress by substantial margins. He merely had to “compromise” with the vested interests until the bills accomplished very little. But Teddy was a fighter.

Sad to say,if for some nutritional need it was discovered that Americans must eat beef stew once a week to remain healthy, and a law must be passed to require it, if there was opposition in Congress Obama would agree to a compromise that substituted chicken broth for the beef stew and dropped the requirement to a suggestion. He would call it a victory.

This very day, President Obama could get Senate approval for a meaningful change to our failing health care system by a vote of 52 to 48. But it would not leave the all Senators with feelings of good fellowship. Obama wants the bill to pass 76 to 24, even if he must compromise until what remains is virtually meaningless.

Another Roosevelt, Franklin, is also ranked among the great. It’s true some Republicans born long after he died and couldn’t knowledgeably discuss any piece of Roosevelt’s legislation; enjoy occasionally exhuming his body and beating it with sticks. But as the recent stock market crash illustrated, a retirement plan based on the stock market, could be wiped out overnight. It’s a rare Republican who now proposes “privatizing” Social Security. But in 1935 when FDR submitted the legislation that created Social Security,it was not met with universal acclaim. He had work hard for its passage. In 1941, with war raging in Europe and Japan planning to attack Pearl Harbor in just a few months, Americans and the Congress opposed extending the draft. But FDR believed we must be prepared and battled for the draft law. It passed the House 203 to 201.

It’s scary to think how helpless we would have been when bombs rained down on Pearl Harbor and Germany joined Japan in declaring war. We voted for a man who talked tough, pledged to take on the vested interests that have emasculated Congress, only to discover we have elected not a Teddy Roosevelt or Harry Truman, but sent Mr. Rodgers to the White House.