Reviews for Elizabeth Dole

The average rating for Elizabeth Dole based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-05-13 00:00:00 Andrew Maricle "We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace'business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me'and I welcome their hatred." ― Franklin D. Roosevelt Yes, never before in our history, but history tends to repeat itself when you choose to ignore it. I don't know about you, but I find that above quote a bit spooky. President Obama.....read that last line a few times over. The only other time in history the U.S. had such a high income inequality as we have right now was 1929-ish......EEK. In this Jonathan Alter takes a look at the life of FDR, not just the 100 days. To understand what it took for a man to have the strength to do what he did in those 100 days, background was needed. FDR was a politician, no doubt about it. He married someone he wasn't in love with to help with his political career. He had a mistress for many years, his true love (which he couldn't get away with in today's 24hr news cycle). He used people to get ahead in his ambitions, and then discarded them. It wasn't all rainbows and ponies that fart glitter, people. Self admittedly, he was not the smartest man in the room, but he new enough to surround himself with the smartest. As an adult he contracted polio and was paralyzed from the waist down. In those days it was a stigma to fall ill to polio, so he forced himself to "walk" with painful braces on his legs and with the aid of a strong man to hold onto him. It was by using his upper body to sling his useless legs forward, this apparently was excruciating, yet the man was always smiling and waving his hat in those moments. He would stand at a podium to make speeches. But he really wasn't standing at all, he held himself up by bracing himself up with his arms. Ouch. When it came right down to the nitty gritty of fixing the countries economy, he had a hard time finding people to work with him from the other side of the isle. Imagine that. So, to do what needed to be done for the American people, he became a bit of a dictator, and the people didn't mind that. He saved capitalism by mixing in a healthy dose of socialism (psst...we have socialism right now, that we quite like). He found it a crime that the elderly were dying in poverty after working hard everyday of their lives, now we have Social Security and Medicare, which has worked quite nicely. He taxed the rich 90%. 37% doesn't sound that bad now, does it? He (the government....OMG) created jobs with ginormous infrastructure projects, such as your cross country highway system. Now all was going well until 1937 when he started listening to some people on the other side bitching about spending and the deficit. The recovery slowed when he responded by backing down. If he hadn't done that and been more aggressive, the recovery would have been much quicker. That, sadly, sounds familiar too. As a result, the 50's turned out swell (if you weren't black or female, or god forbid....gay). Everything was moving right along until....Nixonland: America's Second Civil War and the Divisive Legacy of Richard Nixon, 1965-1972. "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." ― Franklin D. Roosevelt

Review # 2 was written on 2009-01-18 00:00:00 Deborah Panella I admit to reading this one because Obama was reading it and because so many pundits have been citing similarities between the Depression in the 30ies and Roosevelt's first 100 days of New Deal legislation and the situation currently faced by our new president. I ended up seeing more differences than similarities between the two presidents and between the two situations'which doesn't mean the book isn't not only interesting but timely. By the way, I agree with the author that this time around 100 days won't do it. And even with Roosevelt, as Alter says, his most significant legislation, Social Security, passed later in his Presidency. While the book tends to zero in on the 100 days, the author obviously found that, writing to a general audience, he had to give considerable background on Roosevelt'which he does in a series of short chapters which I found fun to read even though I'm fairly well read on Roosevelt the person and the president and have recently read a good complete biography (Edwards, FDR). In most chapters there was an anecdote or fact that I'd not heard before so I couldn't accuse Alter of just regurgitating what other writers have written. Alter makes much of the comment by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that Roosevelt's primary asset was not his mind but his "first class temperament"'that the title of the first book I read about Roosevelt (by Geoffrey Ward). However, Alter does honor the suggestion, made by Edwards among others, that it's not clear whether Justice Holmes was talking about FDR or about Teddy Roosevelt. But temperament is an important issue in the book and timely because so many have noted that one of Obama's greatest assets is what most call, these days, his "unflappability". In temperament they may not be all that similar, but for both Obama and Roosevelt, likability is an important part of the appeal and the ability to talk to "the people" (not just the politicians) in a way that clarifies complex issues and involves the listener in solutions is of critical importance. Alter gives considerable space to Eleanor in this book too: her despair at giving up her privacy to become first lady, her discovery of a new and historically significant role for the first lady, and her function in keeping FDR in touch. Because of his paralysis, the extent of which the American people did not know, Roosevelt was more vulnerable to what we now call the "bubble" the President exists in. In the 30ies Eleanor began traveling the country and the world, going down in coal mines'and eventually into war zones'to talk to "ordinary Americans" and bringing her insights back to the President. From the first, Roosevelt recognized the danger that the President grow "out of touch", reminding us that Obama's fight to keep his Blackberry isn't just his technology fix, but his recognition that Presidents can easily become bubble-dwellers.