The Defining Moment
by Jonathan Alter
pp. 366, pub. by Simon and Schuster $26.00
As many books as have been written about Franklin Roosevelt, people today seem oddly unaware of his significant contributions to America at a time when society was unravelling. Having navigated the country through both the Great Depression and World War II, it would seem that Roosevelt's place in the collective American memory would be larger and more vivid.
As things stand, with a Republican regime not only in control of both houses of Congress but actively working to carefully rewrite American history, it is a surprise this book even gained print. It is equally instructive (in light of that last sentence) that we have seen in the last few years an absolute deluge of manipulative, unengaging books focusing on American history and, in particular, the so called "Founding Fathers."
And it is indeed difficult not to see all this stuff as unadulterated bullshit.
There have been multiple biographies over the last few years -- starting with a bestseller on John Adams -- about every so-called Founding Father on record. Personally, I have had enough. All of this stuff is gross propaganda anyway. And how many times do we need to hear what a great democratic experiment was being launched by these vaunted Founding Fathers while at the same time they were encouraging revolt against Mother England as well as a wholesale slaughter of the natives who we found living here before us? Well, the result is I am historied out. Jefferson screwing his slaves is a tough narrative to spin.
Thus, it seems, the publishers have moved on. With the Lincoln/Civil War sector of the publishing industry seemingly tapped out, now comes the time to rehabilitate a later period in our history. Expect books on Truman and Eisenhower soon. In the meantime, Newsweek editor Jonathon Alter provides an entertaining and succinct analysis of what the "New Deal" really comprised. Focusing as it does on the president's rise to power and the first one hundred days of his administration, Alter persuasively argues that FDR changed the essential nature of the presidency including changing the social contract between the state and the people and changing the relationship between the executive branch and the media. FDR's "Fireside Chats" are but one meager example. More important, Alter notes, is the tremendous amount of bedrock social safety-net legislation Roosevelt managed to pass in just his first three months in office.
The pre-election FDR is a different beast entirely and Alter does not shy away from showing him to be manipulative, deceitful and often shallow. It was the fight with polio, Alter argues, that turned Franklin from a political wannabe to a populist pragmatist with an overdose of optimism that was needed desperately by average Americans at the onset of the Depression.
The parallels to modern circumstances seem obvious enough but I shall leave those comparisons for others to draw.
Paul, you would think that given the last 40 years or so of liberals being described as wimps, soft hearted, cut and run specialists, that someone would come out with a big fancy biography on the man behind most of the New Deals ideals -from where Roosevelt admittedly really got everything -and that would be of course ex-dockworker turned politician extraordinaire, Al Smith the founding father of modern day liberalism.
Its interesting how his run at the presidency in 1930 against Herbert Hoover -really cast the United States in its metro vs retro configuration that continues in our political life to this day. One good explanation as to why this country elected this idiot and then acted like a bunch of hillbillies -attacking a country thousands of miles away from Osama bin Laden and company...thus ruining our credibilty into the forseeable future, while most of the intelligencia looking at this ill conceived disaster -saw it as that from day one.
Al Smith never got over the hatred or the Klu Klux Klan rallies that came to meet him when he traveled out of our greatest city espousing a better life for everyone.....neither did we.