Liz Cohen: How four men and one woman, with very different backgrounds and views, shaped the New Deal
Re: Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days that Created Modern America by Adam Cohen, Penguin Press, 372 pages, $29.95
Re: The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and his Moral Conscience by Kirstin Downey, Doubleday, 458 pages, $35.00
Obama-watching has become a new national -- even international -- sport. First, all eyes were glued to his miraculous triumph over seven opponents in the primaries, followed by a remarkable victory over John McCain. Next came "picking a Cabinet" as Americans witnessed a selection process touted for careful vetting descend into allegations of financial misconduct, tax evasion, and conflicts of interest. Now attention has turned to Obama's behind-the-scenes work with his inner circle as he tackles the biggest challenge of all -- a deepening depression.
For months, commentators have likened Obama's situation to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's when he took office in 1933. Both inherited a failing economy from a Republican predecessor who clung to free-market nostrums when greater federal intervention was needed. Then each new president acted boldly upon inauguration and harnessed a new technology -- radio in 1933, the Internet today -- to bolster confidence as troubles mounted. In both eras, liberals pinned hopes for fundamental reform on a man of centrist tendencies.
As David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, Timothy Geithner, Christina Romer, Eric Holder, and the rest of the gang are becoming household names -- Hillary Clinton and Larry Summers already were before they signed up -- interest is growing in how they are jockeying for turf and adapting to the pressures the administration now faces. Roosevelt watchers no doubt wondered the same about the people he brought together at the top of his administration.
Two recent books that take as their subject five key figures in FDR's inner circle during his first hundred days as president provide fascinating answers to that question. The press -- and possibly President Obama himself -- has fixed on comparing his Cabinet to Abraham Lincoln's "team of rivals" as recently conceptualized in Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestseller by that name. But, as Adam Cohen demonstrates in his new book, the parallel to FDR may be more compelling. What Cohen (no relation) calls "the most diverse Cabinet in history" consisted of three Republicans as well as the expected Democrats, representatives from the South and West as well as the Northeast and Midwest, two Catholics, the first woman ever, and by 1934 a Jew. Roosevelt deliberately surrounded himself with advisers expressing conflicting points of view in order to weigh the alternatives before him. Cohen shows us a president, much like Obama, who valued wide-ranging advice but then trusted his own judgment....
Read entire article at American Prospect
Re: The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and his Moral Conscience by Kirstin Downey, Doubleday, 458 pages, $35.00
Obama-watching has become a new national -- even international -- sport. First, all eyes were glued to his miraculous triumph over seven opponents in the primaries, followed by a remarkable victory over John McCain. Next came "picking a Cabinet" as Americans witnessed a selection process touted for careful vetting descend into allegations of financial misconduct, tax evasion, and conflicts of interest. Now attention has turned to Obama's behind-the-scenes work with his inner circle as he tackles the biggest challenge of all -- a deepening depression.
For months, commentators have likened Obama's situation to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's when he took office in 1933. Both inherited a failing economy from a Republican predecessor who clung to free-market nostrums when greater federal intervention was needed. Then each new president acted boldly upon inauguration and harnessed a new technology -- radio in 1933, the Internet today -- to bolster confidence as troubles mounted. In both eras, liberals pinned hopes for fundamental reform on a man of centrist tendencies.
As David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, Timothy Geithner, Christina Romer, Eric Holder, and the rest of the gang are becoming household names -- Hillary Clinton and Larry Summers already were before they signed up -- interest is growing in how they are jockeying for turf and adapting to the pressures the administration now faces. Roosevelt watchers no doubt wondered the same about the people he brought together at the top of his administration.
Two recent books that take as their subject five key figures in FDR's inner circle during his first hundred days as president provide fascinating answers to that question. The press -- and possibly President Obama himself -- has fixed on comparing his Cabinet to Abraham Lincoln's "team of rivals" as recently conceptualized in Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestseller by that name. But, as Adam Cohen demonstrates in his new book, the parallel to FDR may be more compelling. What Cohen (no relation) calls "the most diverse Cabinet in history" consisted of three Republicans as well as the expected Democrats, representatives from the South and West as well as the Northeast and Midwest, two Catholics, the first woman ever, and by 1934 a Jew. Roosevelt deliberately surrounded himself with advisers expressing conflicting points of view in order to weigh the alternatives before him. Cohen shows us a president, much like Obama, who valued wide-ranging advice but then trusted his own judgment....