The Defining Moment November 12, 2008
Posted by Zack in , trackback
Reading about FDR in The Defining Moment by Jonathan Alter. It’s an account of the sweeping first hundred days of his presidency. The first half of the book is biographical and a look at his road to the White House.
A few things that struck me:
- Bush gets a lot of criticism for believing God put him on Earth to become president. FDR believed the same thing.
- Bush gets a lot if criticism for allowing advisors to argue and then mixing and matching their advice resulting in often incoherent policy. FDR did the same thing.
- Bush had a strong handler who was arguably more responsible for his career than Bush was himself. So did FDR.
- Bush was seen as a lightweight intellectually, was chronically misunderestimated and was never fully accepted or respected inside his own social caste. Same with FDR.
- Bush played fast and loose with the constitution. FDR played faster and looser.
All those similarities didn’t even strike me until I just started writing them.
Other interesting things:
- FDR’s New Deal and economic policies were mainly created on the fly once he was in office.
- He had essentially all the same positions as Hoover on economics until he got into office.
- He scorned conventional wisdom and created a highly non-traditional “brain trust” who helped formulate his economic policies.
- Part of the reason New Deal investment all went to infrastructure and not industry was because of certain ideas about how the economy worked. They largely left “productive” industry alone. (Until the war, of course, which is what really got the US out of the depression).
And that’s just after the first half of the book. I haven’t even gotten into the 100 days yet. It’s a great read — I highly recommend it.
Comments»
Alter carries the virtue of being one of the first people to openly advocate for torture as part of the grand GWOT, in 2001: http://www.newsweek.com/id/76304
If that’s who you want telling our history, by all means, recommend his book. I read it, and I enjoyed it, but I don’t trust Alter’s interpretation at all.
I’ll grant you all of the things that struck you … although they could be open to interpretation.
BUT … errr … FDR actually accomplished something by the time he’d been in office for 8 years. I mean look, you wrote it yourself, he established a “brain trust.” Bush did not.
‘Nuf said.
Yeah - I’m not saying FDR was bad, or that he was just like Bush. There have just been a lot of surprises in the book.
Did FDR play “faster and looser” with the constitution to subvert civil liberties and implement torture?
GWB got flak for *saying* that he believed God put him on Earth to become president. Did FDR boast out loud too?