Barack Obama's First 100 Days

As the clock counts down to his inauguration, President-elect Barack Obama faces one of the greatest set of crises to ever face a new President. Perhaps not since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt has a new President been forced to come to terms with such a heavy load of national and international issues.

The entire world is sliding into a recession - dare we say depression - the likes of which has not been seen since 1932. Nations small and large are experiencing massive numbers of their citizens clamoring for a chance to make enough to eat and feed their families. The number of Americans looking for a job is approaching ten percent of the workforce, and may actually exceed that number, considering the numbers who have become shut out and shut off from unemployment benefits, and are no longer part of the official statistics.

Banks and other financial institutions are failing all over the world. An entire nation teeters on the brink of bankruptcy, with Iceland frantically seeking a way to bolster its currency from total collapse. And the banks are, once again, to blame for their own demise, by taking on reckless lending habits and engaging in securitizing debt obligations. Instead of the collapse of the stock market, their practices have led to the collapse of the real estate market, throwing 100s of thousand onto the streets as they rapaciously foreclose on millions of homes.

Again, the number of people being put on the street has not been rivaled since the Great Depression.

The nation is on a wartime footing, and the saber rattling going on in a particularly unstable part of the world where massive numbers of US troops are stationed should give us all a pause, as we consider that our national defense capability. Our ability to respond to issues in our homeland have been seriously compromised by the deployment of our National Guard overseas, instead of fulfilling the purpose of those militias - to protect us here.

Have we created our own version of Pearl Harbor with this short-sighted vision of how best to defend the nation that was crafted by the Bush administration? Would the American people arise to the challenge as they did in 1941? Do we have a leader in Barack Obama capable of arousing that national zeal?

Obama can address many of these issues through the energy policies his administration crafts, depending on the leadership of Congress to stop looking at short term solutions to a long term problem - a reliance of the United States on foreign interests to keep our economic engine running.

By creating a series of interlocking research, finance, and tax initiatives in the alternative energy sector, Obama has the opportunity to create millions of new manufacturing jobs in the nation, to free us from oil as our principal source of energy, and to bring the United States back into a preeminent position on the world stage.

Obama will have to show bold leadership and rouse the American people to recognize that we have a clear and present danger that must be dealt with, much in the way FDR did with his speech delivered on December 8, 1941 following the bombing and decimation of Pearl Harbor.

He must present a clear vision, in the same way that President John Kennedy did with his challenge to the American people to put a man on the moon within a decade.

In order to succeed, newly-sworn-in President Barack Obama must create an atmosphere of hope, and present us with a common cause to elevate us all to perform to our best and beyond.