They might be giants: Alan Wolfe says democrats can reclaim the mantle of American greatness.

• Author: Reed, Bruce
• Position: Return To Greatness: How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose and What It Needs to Do to Recover It - Book Review

Return To Greatness How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose What It Needs to Do to Recover It

By Alan Wolfe Princeton University Press, $22.95

February 2005 marked a milestone of sorts, for America: Since the 9/11 attacks, we fought the war on terror for 41 months--the same length of time it took our grandparents' America to go from being attacked at Pearl Harbor to winning World War II in Europe.

Except for American troops, whose heroism has spanned the generations, our time does not stack up well by comparison. By May 1945, the United States had rallied the world to crush fascist totalitarianism and was hosting 50 allied nations to charter the United Nations. By February 2005, by contrast, the United States had splintered the world's resolve to stamp out Islamic totalitarianism, weakened the United Nations, and damaged historic alliances. Three and a half years into the war on terror, no V-E Day is in sight, unless Bush counts his reelection as a victory over France.

Perhaps the most dispiriting contrast between then and now is closer to home. In the wake of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, FDR transformed a struggling, isolationist nation into the greatest economic and military power on earth, laid the groundwork for the most dramatic explosion of middle-class opportunity in history, and unleashed a spirit of sacrifice and responsibility we have prized for 60 years since. In the wake of 9/11, George W. Bush has corroded America's economic engine, mismanaged the military, concentrated wealth, and fostered an ethic of debt and irresponsibility that will force our children to sacrifice for 60 years hence.

Like FDR, Bush was handed the chance to make America great. But Bush has made us go broke instead.

Is it too late to make America great again? That is the question Alan Wolfe asks in Return to Greatness: How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose and What It Needs to Do to Recover It.

Wolfe argues that America's history has been a long struggle between a few Roosevelts and Lincolns who have challenged America to be great, and a swarm of Bushes and McKinleys who aimed low and achieved even less. While George W. Bush wants to be judged on the sweep of his ambitions, Wolfe explains that the test of greatness is courage and results, not audacity. "Bush's presidency demonstrates that rejecting greatness when it is providentially offered," writes Wolfe, takes leadership "of a particularly perverse sort."

A few Republicans, led by John McCain, have urged...