"They are unanimous in their hatred of me, and I welcome their hatred."

[Ardent15]

So said President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he spoke of the businessmen and corporatists who virulently opposed the New Deal.

Why can't we have someone with that kind of courage?

[notesdev]

1. Depends

does courage poll well?

[ChiciB1]

5. Don't Know, But It SHOULD!!! n/t

[JackRiddler]

11. "Does courage poll well?" It obviously did for Roosevelt.

[Chulanowa]

13. Yes, but it doesn't pay well

That's really the crux of the matter, isn't it?

[ddeclue]

2. His name is ALAN GRAYSON.

:D

[Ardent15]

3. A freshman Congressman is the best we have?

I like Grayson, but that's kind of sad.

[JuniperLea]

6. I'm hoping others see how well received this activity is...

And follow suit.

It's about time these dillweeds get that we want some backbone! If you want good poll numbers, get some backbone! Simple!

[Jane Austin]

4. We don't need any more

hate talk.

[anonymous171]

26. What? They do hate us. Their goals are completely irreconcilable with our own.

We can either choose to destroy them or be subjugated by them.

[AllentownJake]

7. Easy answer

They all want corporate lobbying jobs when they leave office. See Gephardt and Daschle.

or

They want corporate board appointments for their wives.

See Evan Bayh

[kenny blankenship]

8. Talk like that would scare investors! People want to know whether their President is a crook or not.

They need to know he'll smooth things over when auditors find a cooler of rotting mackerel stinking up the company vault. They need to know he'll hush it up, send the auditors to Siberia, blame mold in the airconditioning and crack a window. They need to know he'll take care of business, put things right, keep capital free to move about the world, and help employers gain access to new pools of low wage labor. They want to know, in short, that he's like they are, crooked to the core and that he shares their values.

[Ozymanithrax]

9. Becasue no living politician has that kind of courage.

For decades now, they only allow cowards to run for office.

[mullard12ax7]

10. You mean the kind of courage and morals that would imprison war criminals?

A person who would hold torturers accountable? A person who would address a widespread culture of corruption? Yes, why can't we have that? Because most people are greedy and easily manipulated non-thinking dupes, regardless of political affiliation.

[Chulanowa]

12. Congrats on your 666th post!

:evilgrin:

Our Democrats still think the Republicans are in charge, is the problem. They can't seem to get it trhough their head that they've been granted the power to do things, and instead insist on hobbling along like they're still the minority party.

[Ardent15]

15. Exactly. Democrats are scared to be Democrats, and are instead being Republican-lite.

They don't have the courage to stand up for Democratic Party values.

[datasuspect]

14. FDR was a statesman. we don't have statesmen anymore

we get politicians, hucksters, and used car salesmen now.

[anonymous171]

25. "A politician is a man who understands government.

A statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years"-Harry Truman

[morillon]

16. One of my favorite quotes, period.

Love, love, LOVE it.

[FrenchieCat]

17. Courage to order the incarceration of thousands of Japanese-Americans during WWII?

Yep...that kind of courage IS hard to find.... :eyes:

(folks love rewriting history so that they can hold up icons,
regardless of how flawed the icons may have been).....

The Right have done it with Reagan,
and it appears that the Left also only see what they want to see.....
while courage is standing right in front of their fucking faces....
in the body of our first African-American President,
who has been called every name in the goddamn book by just about everyone and their mama,
and seemingly afforded less respect than any other President in history, even as he
goes about taking actions that will go down in history as well....history making.

folks giving this President 10 months (well less, since the complaints started on day two) and then comparing his approach to a President who got nearly 144 months in years gone by is soooo cool!!

But whatever....
courage will be judged shortly via the historians who actually do research, not by the day by day reactionaries, who prefer confrontation and George W. Bush tactics coming from the Left.

[Stand and Fight]

18. Maybe you should look into all the good Roosevelt did his first 10 months in office.

Then take a look at all the bad that Bush II and Reagan did in their first 10 months in office.

When I compare the President to these three prior Presidents and contrast his achievements with theirs in the first 10 months, I must say I am somewhat disappointed in President Obama at the moment.

President Roosevelt made a very great misstep in interning Japanese Americans in World War II, but the amount of good that he did for this country BEFORE and AFTER the war far outweigh this tragic mistake. To reduce the evaluation of his courageous to this one misstep borders on the surreal and stupid.

[Stand and Fight]

19. I'd recommend if I could. Here's a kick! n/t

[redqueen]

20. Congress. FDR had a compliant congress to work *with* him, not against him. Learn your history. (nt)

[troubledamerican]

21. Howard Dean would have made a great president. Thanks again, DLC & CNN.

Shout-outs to Carville & Rahm.

[nemo137]

22. Because it's a much different time, and a different person.

Roosevelt came from money, he was a patrician. He was drilled, basically from birth, to know that his place was at the top. We don't, and it's probably for the best, run people like that anymore.

[anonymous171]

23. FDR was willing to do all sorts of shit to get elected and to get his agenda passed.

Democrats today are too busy taking the "high road" to get anything done.

[debbierlus]

24. FDR is the President that Obama should emulate

Not Lincoln....

These times call for FDR.

He is studying the wrong President.

[Greyhound]

27. FDR (and Teddy for that matter) was a class traitor.

Steps have been taken to ensure that another one never slips in again.

[OneBlueSky]

28. this is where Obama is making his greatest miscalculation, imo . . .

instead of crawling into bed with the corporations, he should be exposing their power and their misdeeds and vowing to take corrective action to strictly regulate their activities . . . they are simply too powerful, to the point that they practically negate whatever power the Congress and the president still have left . . . virtually every major problem/issue facing this nation can be traced directly back to the unending drive for short-term corporate profits, with no regard for long-term consequences of the actions that produce those profits . . .

we live in a corporatocracy (and it's not a benevolent one), and until that's addressed, nothing of real import is going to change . . .