Roosevelt and Bush: Book Review
- From: PaPaPeng <PaPaPeng@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 18:15:01 GMT
Do read the book review by
Jonathan Alter
Newsweek http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12441954/site/newsweek/
Selected excerpts.
1. In "The Defining Moment," my new book examining FDR's election and
storied Hundred Days, I don't draw explicit comparisons with Bush. But
they're hard to ignore. Also at age 40, Bush conquered his own, less
debilitating disease, a battle with the bottle that left his wife
Laura saying, "It's me or Jack Daniels." He emerged with a
single-minded focus and discipline that took him far. But when
discipline hardens into dogma, a president loses the suppleness to
respond to problems. Bush's adherence to routine-a frequent attribute
of those who have beaten substance abuse problems-may have slowed his
adjustment to new circumstances.
By contrast, Roosevelt was so flexible that many Democrats tried to
stop him from gaining the 1932 presidential nomination because they
saw him as a straddler and flip-flopper on issues like the League of
Nations and Prohibition. (Neither "wet" nor "dry," he was a "damp.")
But by calling for "bold, persistent experimentation," he turned
flexibility into a principle. When man met moment in 1933, FDR cut
left and right at once, putting people to work and regulating Wall
Street for the first time, but also resisting pressure to nationalize
the banks and slashing federal spending by 30 percent, the deepest
cuts ever.
Like Bush, FDR took an expansive view of presidential power. But he
didn't circumvent Congress, as Bush did on warrantless wire-tapping.
On March 5, 1933, his first full day in office, Roosevelt toyed with
giving a speech to the American Legion in which he essentially created
a Mussolini-style private army to guard banks against violence. One
draft had Roosevelt telling middle-age veterans, long since returned
to private life, that "I reserve to myself the right to command you in
any phase of the situation that now confronts us." When I saw this
document in the Roosevelt Library, my eyes nearly popped out. This was
dictator talk-a power grab. But FDR didn't give that speech. Although
establishment figures like the columnist Walter Lippmann urged
Roosevelt to become a dictator (Mussolini was highly popular in the
U.S. and the word, amazingly enough, had a positive connotation at the
time), the new president decided to run everything past Congress-even
the arrogant and ill-fated effort to "pack" the Supreme Court in 1937.
2. Where Bush has until now placed loyalty over performance, FDR put
performance over loyalty. If aides didn't do the job or keep him fully
informed, he would freeze them out, even if-like Louis Howe
(Roosevelt's Rove), Ray Moley and Jim Farley-they had served him for
years. And where Bush has often seen the war on terror as a chance for
partisan advantage, FDR viewed World War II as a time to reach across
party lines. He appointed Herbert Hoover's secretary of state, Henry
Stimson, his secretary of war, and the 1936 GOP candidate for vice
president, Frank Knox, his navy secretary. He even brought his 1940
Republican opponent, Wendell Willkie, into the fold.
3. Unlike many liberals who worship him, Roosevelt wasn't wedded to
any agenda. His bias was for action, and he was willing to compromise
greatly. To enact Social Security in 1935, he abandoned his liberal
base and endorsed the conservative version of the bill. Even so, FDR
would not have approved of Bush's privatization plan, because his
bedrock principle was "guaranteed return"-a much deeper concept of
"security" than protection against terrorists.
-------------------------------------------------
I will certainly look forward to reading this book
FDR's Hundred Days And The Triumph Of Hope" by Jonathan Alter, to be
published by Simon & Schuster on May 2.
For it does identify why and how GWB has led America down her current
disastrous path. I also see parallels applicable to China's
strategies. The most important observations about China's strategies
are her flexibilty to adapt to rapidly changing conditions. 2. The
ability to suspend dogma to adopt strategies that work and abandon
those that don't. 3. That only results count. 4. The adherence to
order, that is decisions are made by consultation and with
deliberation, not on the whim of one man.
.
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