A lovely fantasy: What if the president believed in some of the stuff FDR did? (And defiantly said so!)

"What Roosevelt had going for himself was a real set of policies and the capacity to speak on their behalf -- a willed capacity to state things plainly, forcefully, and effectively."

-- New Yorker editor David Remnick, in a blogpost,
"F.D.R.'s Message to B.H.O."

by Ken

David Remnick explains in this newyorker.com News Desk post that the FDR video was sent to him by a friend "for the obvious reason: F.D.R. sounds as if he is sending a message in a bottle (a YouTube bottle) to Barack Obama as he prepares for the second debate with Mitt Romney on Tuesday."

In 1936, Franklin Roosevelt was faced with a vicious reëlection campaign. He was vilified for the New Deal reforms. The word "boondoggle" was popularized in the U.S. the year before to describe alleged abuses of the New Deal. Opposition politicians and critics compared F.D.R. to Lenin. The Depression was still on, and unemployment, which had dropped significantly, was still high, over fourteen per cent. (It would rise again in 1938.) What Roosevelt had going for himself was a real set of policies and the capacity to speak on their behalf -- a willed capacity to state things plainly, forcefully, and effectively. Never more so than on September 29, 1936, at the New York Democratic State Convention, in Syracuse. Here is the most famous passage of the speech, which came in the thick of the national campaign:

Let me warn you and let me warn the nation against the smooth evasion which says, "Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them -- we will do more of them, we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything."

But, my friends, these evaders are banking too heavily on the shortness of our memories. No one will forget that they had their golden opportunity -- twelve long years of it.

Remember, too, that the first essential of doing a job well is to want to see the job done. Make no mistake about this: The Republican leadership today is not against the way we have done the job. The Republican leadership is against the job’s being done.

The video of the Syracuse speech has been kicking around -- you’ve got to watch it; F.D.R. is sharp, funny, and masterful -- and the full text is well worth reading, too. A friend sent it to me for the obvious reason: F.D.R. sounds as if he is sending a message in a bottle (a YouTube bottle) to Barack Obama as he prepares for the second debate with Mitt Romney on Tuesday.

P.S. Roosevelt’s Republican opponent was Alf Landon of Kansas. F.D.R. won forty-six of forty-eight states.

What's not entirely clear is whether DR understands that the president isn't just that "willed capacity to state things plainly, forcefully, and effectively," but "a real set of policies" on whose behalf he might undertake to speaky. Oh, he has policies, all right, but I think it's pretty clear by now that they're of the right-of center corporatist, neolibe sort, policies that have hardly anything in common with those we can see and hear FDR advocating, policies that don't lend themselves to FDR-style plain, forceful, effective advocacy.

Still, it makes for an appealing fantasy, doesn't it? Like as if some political fairy godmother could wave her magic wand and make President Obama believe these things -- and say so cloudly and clearly.

Okay, back to reality. But it was nice while it lasted.


OR THERE'S THIS APPROACH FOR THE PRESIDENT

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) -- With his polite and well-mannered performance widely panned in the first Presidential debate, President Barack Obama is under mounting pressure to prove that he can act like an asshole in the second debate tomorrow night, a campaign aide confirmed.

“In America, we demand that our President remain cool and calm in a crisis but go batshit in a debate,” the aide said. “Tuesday night is all about that second piece.”

Rather than unspooling a laundry list of facts and numbers as he did in the first debate, this time Mr. Obama will focus on tearing Mr. Romney a new one.

Unfortunately, the aide acknowledged, such classic dick moves as dismissively interrupting an opponent and laughing over his answers do not come naturally to Mr. Obama: “That’s why we’re having Joe Biden work with him.”

But even as Mr. Obama worked around the clock to practice being a douche, Mitt Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, doubted his efforts would succeed.

“Being an asshole isn’t a skill that you can just pick up overnight,” Mr. Rhoades said. “Mitt Romney’s been working on it all his life.”

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