I watched part of the the public television series on Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt.
The part on Teddy was not particularly interesting to me because it focused on him and did not recognize him for the truly extraordinary man he is in American history. One president who deserved to be on Mount Rushmore.
He was a man of extraordinary strength and political vision. He shaped modern America far more than any other man. Understanding him personally is quite irrelevant. Understanding what he did in every field from conservation, to military, to finance is very important and is not offered to us in the wuzzy world of public television.
The part on Franklin was a little more interesting to me because I had never seen the photographs of Franklin as a cripple. There were many photographs and movies of his atrophied legs and his swimming at Warm Springs. More importantly there are two things about Franklin that I actually never saw before seeing it on this wimpy public tv program.
First it is very obvious that Franklin was elected by the American people out of their love for Theodore. The Democrats chose him for that single reason. He also represented an upper class person beyond the fray of standard Democratic party ugliness.
Second, I was stunned by what an emotionally pathetic person Franklin was. That is the reason for the comparison with Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton is a spineless, lying, pathetic person who is desperately in need of affection and seeks public affection every minute of every day.
In retrospect I begin to realize that that was Franklin. He was not a liar, his word was always good and his anticipation of World War II is much appreciated.
The rest of what he did as reported in the TV series is irrelevant. The show was fairly accurate in acknowledging that FDR did nothing effective, like the current president Obama, to get the country out of the severe economic downturn.
It is sad that in our two financial calamities we got stuck with spineless, vapid Democratic fools who enacted useless socialistic economic notrums.