Reagan and Roosevelt

The attempted comparison of Ronald Reagan to Franklin Roosevelt is too ludicrous not to be refuted. Michael Barone quotes Arthur Schlesinger Jr. on F.D.R. as justification for his misguided comparison.

Although Schlesinger writes that F.D.R. “ . . . often thought hazily and superficially” and “portentous decisions were precariously reared on idiotic anecdotes . . .,” the similarity ends there. As Schlesinger also states, “. . . (F.D.R.) felt profoundly” and “ . . . a vast amount of feeling, imagination and sympathy which (F.D.R.) could neither articulate nor understand, but . . . had a plunging accuracy of its own.”

Any similarity to the Reagan we know--palpably devoid of either feeling, imagination or sympathy--is incomprehensible.

Barone, in pursuing his hazy hypothesis, evokes Reagan’s paraphrasing Roosevelt’s “Are you better off than you were last year?” and proceeds to quote another source: “(Reagan’s) cadences are Roosevelt’s . . . his metaphors . . . Roosevelt’s.”

Rather than indicating similarities, this further illustrates Reagan’s lack of imagination, plus paucity of originality and intellect.

Barone also evokes F.D.R.’s enormous curiosity about and understanding of ordinary Americans’ lives, then analogizes that Reagan is sentimental, “watches TV and movies and even MTV” and tells anecdotes. How these simplistic pursuits indicate concern for ordinary people defies logic. Additionally, Reagan’s disdain for ordinary people, let alone the destitute, has been abundantly demonstrated.

In his most egregious endeavor to equate the two, Barone tells of Roosevelt’s triumphant “rendezvous with destiny” speech before 90,000 people--after having fallen, scattered his speech, been helped up and handed his speech out of order.

This attempt at comparison borders on lunacy, since our Great Communicator is rendered seemingly catatonic by as minor a mishap as a TelePrompter glitch.

Yes, Reagan is a product of design, as Barone states. And behind that calculated, swell-guy facade exists a void. Roosevelt, by contrast, was a showman, a grandstander and may have been “choreographed,” but by God, he had substance and was truly a man for the people.

To compare this compassionate human to the shallow creation personified in our President is the ultimate obscenity.

ILENE BRISKIN

Beverly Hills