Last week, liberal author and Obama supporter Doris Kearns Goodwin told “Meet the Press” that the president ought to stop playing the post-partisan and emulate Theodore Roosevelt by initiating a re-election effort aimed at rekindling the 26th president’s appeal for a “Square Deal.” Kearns Goodwin hoped Obama might capture the fervor of TR’s unsuccessful Bull Moose Party campaign for president in 1912 during which he called for more fairness in the economic system of the time and railed against untrammeled corporate greed. And, as Ben Smith notes in Politico, it appears the White House is taking her advice by going to Osawatomie, Kansas, to deliver remarks on the economy which will seek to identify Obama’s views with those of the hero of San Juan Hill.
The superficial link between Roosevelt’s version of progressivism and contemporary liberalism was enough to send Glenn Beck off the deep end last year, but it appears the famous historian Kearns Goodwin and Obama himself seem to agree with the conservative talker. But they are all equally off the mark. Comparisons between TR’s attempt to introduce some notion of fairness into a financial system that had none at the time and in which even the most minimal government regulation of market excesses was controversial simply cannot be compared to Obama’s desire to expand the size and reach of government to an extent Roosevelt never dreamed of.
Like most historical analogies, the effort to compare the cool Obama to the Rough Rider is a contrivance driven more by the desire of Democrats to seize any popular theme to save a failing presidency than a reasonable comparison of the two men’s ideas. Roosevelt’s career and interests were so varied that it is possible to interpret his career in a number of different contexts. He was a soldier and a believer in a vision of America as a burgeoning great power as well as an environmentalist, a progressive as well as devout believer in individualism and the genius of the American entrepreneur and the free market in which he excelled. To focus on one aspect to the exclusion of the others is to create a distorted image neither he nor his contemporaries would have recognized. That is why the recent focus on TR’s progressive period by both elements of the right and the left doesn’t shed much light on either the politics of his time or our own.
To call for restraints on Wall Street greed in 1907 or 1912 at a time when there was no federal income tax or much of a government regulatory scheme is a very different thing from doing so today. The role of the federal government in the market as well as its powers are simply not comparable to those of a century ago. For all of our worries today about the economy and the plight of the poor, they are not to be compared to the situation then–when there was no safety net of any kind for the impoverished as TR thought there should be. One may trace the beginnings of American liberalism to the progressives of that era and Roosevelt’s desire for justice for all Americans, but it is just as silly to appropriate TR as an icon for the Democrats next year as it would be for the GOP to use him. Roosevelt hated J.P. Morgan, but as a firm believer in capitalism it isn’t likely he would find much to like in the rhetoric of Occupy Wall Street with which Obama sympathizes. Nor, I might add, would he have been likely to have much use for Barack Obama’s disdain for American exceptionalism. As biographer Kearns Goodwin should know, TR was no socialist. He distanced himself from the progressives after 1912 for the very reason that he saw their evolving political movement diverging from his own principles.
Obama and TR are polar opposites in just about every aspect of their characters and presidencies. Obama hasn’t the personality or the political convictions to credibly play Harry Truman to recreate the Democrats’ victory of 1948, and the idea that he can channel the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt is ridiculous.
When I see Obama standing up to a grizzly bear, I may consider the TR/BO comparison.
My $'s on the bear.
I loved this analysis. I don't see Obama moving upnext to Teddy on Mt Rushmore any time soon.
Well stated. nObama's recent fake-Truman was an insult to how Harry S. Truman actually won in 1948, by railroading through every small town and farming village to show he WAS one of them. nDoris Kearns Goodwin gushed at the prospect of 'healing America's racial stain' in 2008, as if that were reason enough to vote for Obama. nIf Goodwin were a real historian, she would be using the LBJ model – to step aside for the good of the country. America's loss is that Robert Caro is not the leading pundit on the history of the Presidency – his epic work on LBJ was most revealing on the hypocrisy of FDR, and how envelopes of cash poison America's federal political class. Or, where is David McCullough?
obama as TR? That’s insulting.
Nothing new here; Democrats have always played this game. Social engineering, paid for by wealth redistribution and fueled by class warfare. It's been their strategy forever.
Bingo! n
Well, we (as in We the people) have gone through the "square" deal, the "New" deal and now Obamas' very own concoction, the "Raw" deal. Granted, not every social ill is of his making, nor every debt is he the author of, but he has done nothing to put the brakes on a car rapidly approaching the cliff of financial meltdown.
Obama has tried to emulate many different Presidents from Lincoln, Jefferson, to Roosevelt; Truman and even Reagan, but still he is Jimmy Carter on steriods.
This criminal organization is a party of perpetual fraud who fiends for power and tax payer dollars who cannot win elections on merit or honesty. They have proven it themselves . It's that simple.
T. Roosevelt was a Big Government socialist, a warmonger, and a racist. Roosevelt was partiallly responsible for giving us Woodrow Wilson, an inveterate liberal fascist. Roosevelt's likeness should be blasted right off of Mt. Rushmore.
Bravo, Mr. Tobin. Yes, TR's career and interest were varied and he did not need a Teleprompter to help him articulate his thoughts. One can make a strong case that TR possesed the greatest intellect of any American president. It is offensive to endure the marketing of BO as a cut rate TR. We might as well have Jennifer Aniston playing Katharine Hepburn on the Broadway stage.
TR was a progressive but Obama could not ….1. build the great White Fleet and pushed our military. 2. Did Trust Busting but Obama could not do that with the Unions! 3. Believed in educational reform but O wants more socialist Govt. control while Teddy did not. Obama is not TR or Lincoln but he sure is Carter.
Are you seriously telling me that Teddy would have thought it was "fair" for the Treasury to loan 7.7 Trillion to banks, so that the government could turn around borrow the same money to the tune of 13 Trillion profit for those banks? There is something SERIOUSLY WRONG with our financial system! n nThe first thing Teddy would do is DEMOLISH K STREET…and put all of the lobbyists in prison!…and then he would probably attend an OWS event. That's why he didn't get elected as a BULL MOOSE. He was too much of a threat!
Ridiculous is exactly the word for it. I have no doubt that few graduates of our public schools who are Democrats have ever heard of Teddy Roosevelt.
Obama made a very good sounding speech. So, I got on the trail to discover the reactions of others. Sure glad I did. Maybe this will help you decide.