Sunday, February 1, 2009

Assignment#1 T. Whiteaker

"Radical in the White House" was written by Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times. The article was written because we have a newly elected president who faces many challenges in the next four years. The article is timely written after President Obama's historical inauguration. He is directing the article towards all Americans and in particular President Obama himself.
Friedman is writing in hopes that Obama can take these great challenges and turn this country back to what it once was. He also writes in hopes that Obama is a "closet radical" for the sole purpose that he can take this opportunity that has been given to him and go all out to accomplish the goals that he has set for the country. Its also stated that he wants us to get away from the policies that have our country in the state that it is in. He thinks we should all seize the opportunity to get away from our past policies and radically move forward into the future.
This is a very well written argument that is very important for all of us. At the present time our country faces many challenges that need to be taken head on, but with the right amount of radical. Friedman points out that being radical is good but it needs to be controlled at some point. We cant "swing for the fence" on every issue. Overall, this was a very timely and well written article. We all could take something from it.