John Milton Cooper: Obama's Wilsonian Moment
[John Milton Cooper, Jr., is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin. He is the author of Breaking the Heart of the World: Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations and The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, among other books. He was recently a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.]
When President Obama accepts the Nobel Prize for Peace in Oslo on December 10, he will step into the shadow of the last sitting president to receive that prize, Woodrow Wilson. This is not just a coincidence: All presidents who have proclaimed lofty values and ideals and wanted to see them extended in the world have been labeled “Wilsonian.” Obama, like Wilson, has drawn both praise and condemnation for his soaring rhetoric, but, like Wilson, he looks for practical, down-to-earth measures to advance his ideals. Just as Marx once said, “I am no Marxist, just Karl Marx,” Wilson’s ghost could say, “I am no Wilsonian, just Woodrow Wilson.”
Ironically—because Wilson oversaw a racist administration and failed to deal with racial injustice—no president since has resembled him more than Barack Obama. Their public images are strikingly similar, cool, deliberative, thoughtful, and each was a professor before entering politics. Soaring eloquence is something else they have in common. Presidents no longer write all their own speeches the way Wilson did, but Obama’s two books show that he likewise owes his eloquence to himself, not his staff.
Unlike Wilson, Obama has faced major foreign policy challenges from the outset of his presidency. Except in Mexico—where civil war and terrorism raged and spawned an attack on the United States—Wilson did not have to make truly big diplomatic decisions until two years into his administration, after the outbreak of World War I. He made those decisions in much the same careful, thoughtful manner as Obama has approached American involvement in Afghanistan. In contrast to some presidents, Wilson did not take the United States into war (in his case, World War I) because he thought God was telling him to do it. When someone implored him to declare war in the name of God, he retorted, “War isn’t declared in the name of God; it is a human affair entirely.” Like Obama he faced accusations of dithering and cowardice, particularly from his great rival Theodore Roosevelt. He did not cloak American intervention in the garb of holy war but saw it as a choice of evils and followed Martin Luther’s injunction to “sin boldly.”
The parallel runs further. Just as Obama is trying to limit American objectives in Afghanistan, Wilson was at pains not to make intervention in World War I a crusade to spread democracy. He said, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” He used the passive voice intentionally; he did not believe this country could make the world safe for democracy but could only play a part in striving to reach that goal. As for trying to impose democracy on other people, he later explained, “There isn’t any one kind of government which we have the right to impose upon any nation. So that I am not fighting for democracy except for the peoples that want democracy.”
Wilson carried his circumspection further during and after the war. In his Fourteen Points, laid down in January 1918, he never used the word democracy or the term “self-determination.” That term was coined by the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George; Wilson later used it, but sparingly and never as a general principle to be applied to all peoples and all places. Lloyd George also uttered the words “war to end all wars”; Wilson never said them. After the war, he promoted his new organization, the League of Nations, as something that could afford only partial insurance against war but was still well worth embarking on to try to prevent another world war. The League was a breathtaking venture to remake world affairs, yet Wilson saw it as a practical, evolving arrangement for the maintenance of peace and order.
The Obama-Wilson parallel extends to domestic affairs as well...
Read entire article at Daily Beast
When President Obama accepts the Nobel Prize for Peace in Oslo on December 10, he will step into the shadow of the last sitting president to receive that prize, Woodrow Wilson. This is not just a coincidence: All presidents who have proclaimed lofty values and ideals and wanted to see them extended in the world have been labeled “Wilsonian.” Obama, like Wilson, has drawn both praise and condemnation for his soaring rhetoric, but, like Wilson, he looks for practical, down-to-earth measures to advance his ideals. Just as Marx once said, “I am no Marxist, just Karl Marx,” Wilson’s ghost could say, “I am no Wilsonian, just Woodrow Wilson.”
Ironically—because Wilson oversaw a racist administration and failed to deal with racial injustice—no president since has resembled him more than Barack Obama. Their public images are strikingly similar, cool, deliberative, thoughtful, and each was a professor before entering politics. Soaring eloquence is something else they have in common. Presidents no longer write all their own speeches the way Wilson did, but Obama’s two books show that he likewise owes his eloquence to himself, not his staff.
Unlike Wilson, Obama has faced major foreign policy challenges from the outset of his presidency. Except in Mexico—where civil war and terrorism raged and spawned an attack on the United States—Wilson did not have to make truly big diplomatic decisions until two years into his administration, after the outbreak of World War I. He made those decisions in much the same careful, thoughtful manner as Obama has approached American involvement in Afghanistan. In contrast to some presidents, Wilson did not take the United States into war (in his case, World War I) because he thought God was telling him to do it. When someone implored him to declare war in the name of God, he retorted, “War isn’t declared in the name of God; it is a human affair entirely.” Like Obama he faced accusations of dithering and cowardice, particularly from his great rival Theodore Roosevelt. He did not cloak American intervention in the garb of holy war but saw it as a choice of evils and followed Martin Luther’s injunction to “sin boldly.”
The parallel runs further. Just as Obama is trying to limit American objectives in Afghanistan, Wilson was at pains not to make intervention in World War I a crusade to spread democracy. He said, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” He used the passive voice intentionally; he did not believe this country could make the world safe for democracy but could only play a part in striving to reach that goal. As for trying to impose democracy on other people, he later explained, “There isn’t any one kind of government which we have the right to impose upon any nation. So that I am not fighting for democracy except for the peoples that want democracy.”
Wilson carried his circumspection further during and after the war. In his Fourteen Points, laid down in January 1918, he never used the word democracy or the term “self-determination.” That term was coined by the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George; Wilson later used it, but sparingly and never as a general principle to be applied to all peoples and all places. Lloyd George also uttered the words “war to end all wars”; Wilson never said them. After the war, he promoted his new organization, the League of Nations, as something that could afford only partial insurance against war but was still well worth embarking on to try to prevent another world war. The League was a breathtaking venture to remake world affairs, yet Wilson saw it as a practical, evolving arrangement for the maintenance of peace and order.
The Obama-Wilson parallel extends to domestic affairs as well...