Roosevelt – The Great Divider [Obama - the great appeaser]
Lesson for Obama on Healthcare:
Roosevelt relished the opposition of vested interests. He fashioned his governing majority by deliberately attacking those who favored the status quo. His opponents hated him — and he profited from their hatred. “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” he told a national radio audience on the eve of the 1936 election. “They are unanimous in their hatred for me — and I welcome their hatred.”
Roosevelt sounds like Hugo Chavez:
For Roosevelt was a divider, not a uniter, and he unabashedly waged class war. At the Democratic Convention in 1936, again speaking to a national radio audience, Roosevelt lambasted the “economic royalists” who had gained control of the nation’s wealth. To Congress he boasted of having “earned the hatred of entrenched greed.” In another speech he mocked “the gentlemen in well-warmed and well-stocked clubs” who criticized the government’s relief efforts.
Roosevelt understood that governing involved choice and that choice engendered dissent. He accepted opposition as part of the process. It is time for the Obama administration to step up to the plate and make some hard choices.
Health care reform enacted by a Democratic majority is still meaningful reform. Even if it is passed without Republican support, it would still be the law of the land.
via Op-Ed Contributor – Roosevelt – The Great Divider – NYTimes.com.
I agree, Obama should forget about the other side–which obviously has no intention of hosting any sort of intelligent compromise.
Just get it done, Obama. Don’t be a plush doll president.
sleepyeagle
September 3, 2009 at 10:16 pm