On Mon, 17 Aug 2009, farmelantj at juno.com wrote:
> I am reminded that in the weeks just prior to Obama taking office, the
> news media were running stories comparing Obama to FDR. But one major
> difference between the conditions that existed when FDR took office from
> those that greeted Obama, was that the US was facing civil unrest by the
> time that Roosevelt was sworn into office versus the relative quiet that
> greeted Obama. Hence, the differences in the actions that the two
> presidents took in their first months in office.
There was at least one other major difference I noticed when looking at an exhibit of newspapers and magazines from FDR first 100 days at the New York Historical society: the enormous deference and benefit of the doubt that all the major national papers and magazines gave to the president in those days simply because he was the president. It was quite shocking, literally like nothing I'd ever seen in my life. We hear so much about the vitriol of local papers and campaign literature against him that I at least never imagined just how high was the divide between that and what was allowed in respectable, national debate defining publications. At least during these first 100 days. You think people around Obama were mesmerized by Hope? That was nothin' compared to the way papers treated FDR.
Like I said, quite a revelation and the opposite of what I expected.
Michael