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| FDR vs GWB; people seem interested | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: May 26 2005, 11:30 AM (66 Views) | |
| Darthsith | May 26 2005, 11:30 AM Post #1 |
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Since people seemed interested in the comparison, I found this while looking up more things about FDR. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Trying to find the right historical analogy for Iraq and the war on Al Qaeda has become a consuming intellectual exercise. Some—including NEWSWEEK, in a cover story last month—have sought clarity in comparing and contrasting Iraq to Vietnam. Others think of the French fight for Algiers; still others point to the aftermath of the Great War and Versailles, which created Iraq in the first place. There is much to say for all of these. No parallel is exact, but turning to history is the only way we can make sense of the present. On the 60th anniversary of D-Day, NEWSWEEK Managing Editor Jon Meacham looks to June 1944. "With a new generation now facing fire on faraway battlefields," he writes in the magazine this week, "the rest of us owe them a ceaseless search to absorb and apply the lessons of what has gone before." What would Churchill make of Bush's war planning? What would FDR think of the man sitting at his desk? Meacham joined us for a Live Talk on Thursday, May 27, at noon, ET, to discuss these topics. Read the transcript below. advertisement Jon Meacham was named Managing Editor in November 1998. He is involved in the day-to-day editorial coverage of the magazine and oversees and assigns stories to Newsweek reporters worldwide. In 2003, he directed coverage of the war in Iraq and, in 2002, of the conflict in Afghanistan. In 2001, Meacham edited the magazine's coverage of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and oversaw both domestic and international reporting. Meacham has written cover stories on guns in America, the role of race in our national life in the new millennium, on the theological implications of the scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, and on the fall of Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott. Previously, he served as National Affairs editor starting in June 1995, where he supervised coverage of politics and national news events. In 1998, he edited Newsweek's groundbreaking coverage of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment of the president, which was honored with a 1999 National Magazine Award for Reporting. He is the editor of "Voices in Our Blood: America's Best on the Civil Rights Movement" (Random House), a literary anthology of the most important nonfiction accounts of the civil-rights movement. His new book, "Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship," about the wartime relationship between Roosevelt and Churchill, was published by Random House in October 2003. Advertisement Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship by Jon Meacham Jon Meacham: This is Jon Meacham, and I'm looking forward to taking your questions. _______________________ West Burke, VT: Exactly why was the invasion called D-Day? Jon Meacham: D-Day is a military term for the actual date of a landing. That means there were several D-Days during World War II, from North Africa to Italy. "D-Day" has, however, come to connote Operation Overlord in the popular imagination. _______________________ Baltimore, MD: The difference, to me, between George H. W. Bush and W in war tactics is the elder's service record. Not knowing much about FDR and Churchill, I wonder what there service experience they had, or did they? Jon Meacham: Churchill was a graduate of the West Point of Great Britain, Sandhurst, and served under fire in several theaters. He was a POW in the Boer War (and made a dramatic escape), and, as a politician, he served as First Lord of the Admiralty and Minister of Munitions in the Great War. Interestingly, when he fell from power over the failed Gallipoli operation, he resigned, and, at age 40, went to fight at the front. A graduate of Harvard, FDR did not serve in the military. He was President Wilson's Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the Great War, and visited the European front in 1918—a trip on which he briefly met Churchill. _______________________ San Diego, CA: Why did Bush really go to war in Iraq anyway? It's not very clear to me. Jon Meacham: The president—and the Congress, which voted in favor of the war—believed that Saddam's Iraq posed a threat to the security of the region and of the United States. Worried that Saddam—a great miscalculator—would either use weapons of mass destruction or supply to terrorists, Bush decided to strike Iraq before Iraq could be part of a strike against us. _______________________ Tampa, FL: FDR and Churchill would ask why a magazine editor would be attempting to second-guess the commander in chief, undermine the war effort and portray the president of the United States as someone in need of tutoring. Jon Meacham: Actually, they wouldn't. Both men believed deeply in democracy, and give and take and the free play of speech and ideas. An old college editor, Roosevelt often referred to his journalism in conversations with reporters, and at one point Churchill was the highest-paid journalist in Britain. Of course, as men in the arena, they could have little patience with second-guessers. Churchill once said critics "spun round with the alacrity of squirrels," and FDR lamented "those well-known backseat drivers." There is no question that governing looks easier from the press room or the visitor's side of the big desk in the Oval Office. But FDR and Churchill would both heartily approve of efforts to debate our course, raise questions and honestly try to think through the troubled issues of our time. _______________________ Havre de Grace, MD: Would FDR and Churchill have civilian leaders totally planning the military operation of a major war? Jon Meacham: No, but neither would President Bush. _______________________ Akron, OH: Prior to WWII, were there any indications that FDR or Churchill were willing to go to war over ideology? It seems to me that Bush's approach to "terrorism" includes injecting democratic/republican ideals into historically autocratic societies. Is he confusing terrorism and dictatorships? (Granted, the two are not always exclusive.) Jon Meacham: If by "ideology" you mean forms of government—that is, would either man have fought for democracy over communism, or democracy over totalitarianism, then yes, there are such indications. Churchill spearheaded an early strike against the Bolshevik Revolution in 1919 (something Stalin never forgot) and denounced Nazi ideology throughout the 1930s. Roosevelt, too, saw trouble in the emerging Nazi threat, and in fact urged a "quarantine" of totalitarian nations in the 1930s. Like Bush, they fought wars of ideas and of arms. _______________________ St. Thomas, Virgin Islands: Churchill probably would have agreed with Bush's decision, but Churchill was not always right. Can you say "Gallipoli?" In my opinion, Churchill's primary contributions to the British in WWII were his tenacity, his ability to boost moral through his words, his energy and his love of a good fight. Which of these qualities, if any, does Bush have and, if so, which of them will serve him well in the war against terror? Jon Meacham: You raise good points. I would say President Bush has all of the qualities you list: he is tenacious, he has been eloquent on the war against terror and he communicates (at least in my opinion) a sense of engagement with the fight against the enemy. Courage is the rarest of gifts, and sometimes leaders do have to resist political elements in their own countries in order to project power to fight battles beyond their borders. Bush has that part down, and that is no small thing. But war leadership also requires an appreciation of complexity and a willingness to change course, two things the president has been less good about. _______________________ Milton, VT: How is the relationship between Bush and Blair like that of FDR and Churchill? Jon Meacham: Both pairs of men are linked by a common struggle, and by the fact that no one else other than their opposite number can really understand what the other one is going through. Roosevelt and Churchill came from similar backgrounds—sons of the Anglo-American elite, they were roughly of the same generation (Churchill was eight years older) and had many of the same interests. Bush and Blair are also of the same generation, and are linked by a common religious faith and a strong sense of duty. Their nations are at war with a shadowy foe, and they are doing the very best they can to win that war. _______________________ Greenview, CA: I believe Churchill/FDR would've said, "Right on George, go for it!" It's my opinion that should the news media of today have existed back in WWII we would've lost the war with both Japan and Germany!! You guys exist today to further not only your personal careers but also to promote the often blatantly biased political agendas of your news agencies. The public needs a "news agency" solely dedicated to "watch and report" on you guys! I'm sorry, but the news media no longer provide the public with "news," just some garbage intended to sway public opinion. Jon Meacham: Your comments reflect a widely held view about the press. It is a view that I (not surprisingly) disagree with, but it is one that should be addressed. The idea that we have "blatantly biased political agendas" was an idea FDR himself had. He once wistfully thought of starting a newspaper when he left the White House so that (and I'm paraphrasing here) people could "get the real news, not just opinion." The media is like the nation at large: a public square of freely held and freely exchanged ideas, with complex and distinct entities and characters and cultures. The roots of the strength of our democracy lies in America's very capacity to agree and disagree so strongly, whether the subject is war or baseball or religion. The key is that we all respect one another's right to express views different from our own—and to hope that, as we've done for nearly 230 years now, we will get to higher ground together. _______________________ Orlando, FL: Did the majority of British politicians and journalist support Neville Chamberlain’s 1930’s policy of appeasement or did more side with a German confrontation approach? Jon Meacham: That's an interesting question. I think a fair reading of the historical record would suggest that a strong majority of the British did indeed support (first) Stanley Baldwin and then Neville Chamberlain. But we must remember the context: pacifism was very much the order of the day, a reaction to the brutal, tragic loss of life in the trenches of the Great War. The same feelings prevailed in America, as well. We sometimes forget that we only got into World War II after the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor—and only went to war against Nazi German after Hitler declared war on us on Thursday, Dec. 11, 1941. _______________________ San Francisco, CA: With the Iraqi war started on the wrong assumptions (WMD and terrorist links), and with postwar assumption of the Iraqi people and politics wrong and Afganistan's reconstruction needed to prevent it from becoming a failed state again, how can this be compared with Churchill and Roosevelt in WWII—their detailed plannings, foresights and understanding of what a postwar world AND its people would be and should be? Jon Meacham: FDR and Churchill were men before they were monuments, and we should not sentimentalize them into perfect leaders. They were not, and they would have been among the first to say so. There were many miscalculations and wrong hunches and guesses in Allied planning during World War II. The lesson to draw from that, though, is that leadership is like any other human endeavor: it is difficult and the results will always be imperfect. The point is that FDR and Churchill found joy in the details of governance and postwar planning, and were thus together, at the table, thrashing these issues out in the hope that workable solutions might come out of the process. And something clearly worked: we are living in a better world because of them. _______________________ Los Angeles, CA: Why should we compare WWII to Iraq? Jon Meacham: Because history is one of the few ways we have to try to understand the present and possibly shape the future. The differences are of course vast, but what we require of our leaders—courage, an appreciation of complexity, a good working relationship with allies—is the same today as it was 60 years ago. And let us all hope that the world emerges a better place in the fullness of time. |
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| Minuet | May 26 2005, 11:37 AM Post #2 |
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Ok - this time you really did forget the link
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| Darthsith | May 26 2005, 11:38 AM Post #3 |
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Opps, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5039738/site/newsweek/ |
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