PIC: FDR v. Obama on dealing oligarchs

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himself and the GOP.

This aint a fucking football game. It doesn't matter if ''our'' side wins if they are going to continue the worst policies of the other side or only nibble at doing things differently. When you don't present voters with a real choice, it's no wonder so many forget to vote.

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is that FDR, an absurdly wealthy white man, was better positioned to "welcome their hatred". Obama, on the other hand, lacks the inherent comforts and implied safety of that circumstance. In Obama's case, the hatred showed up with no invitation whatsoever; he'd have to be insane to "welcome" more.


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and an opposition that only provided token resistance, might have helped.

It sure worked for Bush.

People run away from what is perceived to be weak or wavering. When Obama wavered on health care and 'caved' to big business, Congress knew he would cave on anything else. So therefore they are out for themselves.

the Republicans as often as they let me?''

It's safer to run away from the trash talkers than it is to stand next to them.

FDR actually cooperated fairly closely with Wall Street in his first term, and the centerpiece of the early New Deal, the National Recovery Administration, which was later ruled unconstitutional, was basically written by the nation's leading industrialists to legalize cartels. He appointed people like Joe Kennedy to direct the SEC, and his treasury secretaries were largely conservatives like Henry Morgenthau.

The "I welcome their hatred" line was a single line in a campaign speech in 1936. It didn't come as an endorsement of any political program, and ironically, FDR's second term turned out to be a complete bust on the domestic policy side, with all his proposals dying in Congress upon the opposition of the "Conservative Coalition" (Dixiecrats and Republicans). "I welcome their hatred" is no more a representative remark than Obama's "They talk about me like a dog" line was.

There's plenty to dislike about Obama's laxness on Wall Street. But real life is rarely as simple as myth.