WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2008
Like Abe And FDR, Obama Faces Crises
New President Will Have Challenges Of Multiple Wars, Grave Economic Emergency
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Play CBS Video Video Obama's Top Focus: The Economy During his first press conference as president-elect, Barack Obama said that he will confront the economic crisis head-on. As Chip Reid reports, Obama has met with top experts on the matter.
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Video Backstage On Election Night Election night was a historic evening for America - and for Barack Obama. Backstage pictures show the president-elect as the returns came in.
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Video Eye To Eye: Obama's Goals As president-elect, Barack Obama came before the press careful not to overstep his boundaries but, at the same time, appear in control. Katie Couric talks with Bob Schieffer and Anthony Mason.
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Photo Essay Celebrating History Supporters cheer victorious candidate at huge Chicago gathering.
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Photo Essay Accepting The Mantle President-elect Barack Obama addresses the nation and the world after his victory.
Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President-elect Barack Obama is facing a banking emergency.
Like President Abraham Lincoln, Obama is trying to patch up national divisions.
And like President Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and others, Obama will be commander in chief over U.S. troops in combat.
"With two wars and an economic crisis, this is one step away from what Lincoln or FDR faced," said Terry Sullivan, associate professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The question is `Which direction is the nation going to go?"'
While the challenges Obama faces are daunting, they also give him the opportunity to shape history in a big way.
"My 88-year-old mother asks me regularly, `Why would anybody want to be president now?' said Sullivan, who manages the Presidential Transition Project at Rice University. "My answer is 'Every one of them wants to be FDR.' This is their chance. What makes fame in the American presidency is a great challenge and succeeding." Or, Sullivan added, facing a great challenge and failing.
In fewer than 11 weeks, Obama will inherit not just the economic crisis and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the ongoing threat of a terrorist attack, a resurgent Russia and nuclear proliferation in hot spots across the globe.
Knowing his opening moves will be widely scrutinized, Obama tried to roll back expectations on election night.
"Our climb will be steep," he said. "We may not get there in one year or even in one term."
Yet he remained upbeat as did Roosevelt, who took the reins of a nation in the depths of the Depression. FDR used his optimism to lift up the downtrodden and refresh the American spirit. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," he said at his inauguration in 1933.
When Roosevelt died in 1945, by then a wartime president making secret plans for an atomic bomb, Harry Truman told reporters, "I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me."
In an earlier conflict, when the country was on the brink of civil war, Lincoln took a hands-off approach during a four-month lag between his election and inauguration, staying mum so as not to inflame tensions in the North or the South. After Lincoln was elected, but before he took office, South Carolina announced its decision to secede from the Union. Six more states then seceded and together formed the Confederate States of America.
During the transition, Lincoln maintained what became known as an attitude of "masterly inactivity," said Harold Holzer, who recently wrote the book "Lincoln President-Elect." Lincoln didn't want to do anything that would upset the South, lose him the support of abolitionists in the North or the northern Democrats whom he needed on his side if there was going to be a fight to save the union.
"He thought the best way to deal with it was to be silent," Holzer said.
Like Lincoln, Obama used his first speech as president-elect to try to mend fences - and he did it by quoting Lincoln's conciliatory first inaugural address, which was given at a time of such national turmoil that Lincoln traveled to Washington in secret for safety.
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"Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity," Obama said of Lincoln, another lanky lawmaker from Illinois.With two wars and an economic crisis, this is one step away from what Lincoln or FDR faced. The question is 'Which direction is the nation going to go?'
Terry Sullivan, associate professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends," Obama said. "Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."
To reach out to his critics, Lincoln even allowed a reporter from an opposition newspaper, a journalist named Henry Villard, to virtually move into his office in Springfield, Missouri, to chronicle the transition.
"That's the equivalent of Obama picking up the phone and asking Sean Hannity to move in," Holzer said of the conservative television personality.
Roosevelt, who picked members of the opposing party for Cabinet spots, was as noncommittal as Lincoln as he was about to be sworn into office amid a banking crisis. When Herbert Hoover asked him to sign on to a bank holiday - a temporary closure of banks - three days before inauguration, Roosevelt famously looked up and said, "The drapes look very pretty. I'm sure Eleanor will want to keep these just as they are."
That made Hoover furious. Soon after taking the oath of office, Roosevelt declared the banking holiday on his own.
In his first fireside chat in March 1933, FDR said: "We had a bad banking situation. Some of our bankers had shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people's funds. They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and unwise loans. ... It was the government's job to straighten out this situation and do it as quickly as possible, and the job is being performed."
Sound familiar?
"He wanted to do it himself. A clean slate is what Lincoln wanted. It's what Roosevelt wanted," Holzer said. "The lessons of history are there. The most successful transformative presidencies were patient between the election and the inauguration."
Maybe history is repeating itself in that regard. When President George W. Bush announced before the election that he was hosting a global economic summit in Washington on Nov. 15, the Obama camp said the presidential hopeful wouldn't be there. "He understands there is only one president," an Obama adviser said.
It's early in the transition to draw many conclusions, but Obama's style as a candidate and a legislator was to proceed in a measured, disciplined fashion.
"Obama is an empty vessel into which the American people can be expected to pour their inexhaustible supply of hope - in just the same way that they did in 1932," said Bruce Kuklick, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Obama supporters who spontaneously flocked to the White House into the wee hours after his election Tuesday night were anxious for Obama to move forward. Gazing at the illuminated Executive Mansion where Bush slept, one waved signs that said: "Why wait? Evict Bush now."
For some, jubilation was tempered by recognition of the enormity of the tasks Obama faces.
"It's not just about him," said Rachel Reclam, of Olympia, Washington, an international affairs student at George Washington University. "He inspired people, but I'm not expecting miracles. The financial crisis, the war in Iraq, the health care crisis are not going to be over tomorrow."
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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See all 93 Commentselected by stupid white people abe started that one
he was preserveing the union but thats what the Wall
street of the day wanted him to think FDR let the
japaness bomb pearl harbor
Yet, some people here won''t give Barack Obama a chance.
We are way beyond the sound bites and the bulls**t bickering. Our country is in trouble. Deep trouble.
Tune out from the AM Radio talk garbage and think for yourself. We need to unite behind the new president.
If it doesn''t work out? Then you have something to beef about.
I won''t ''prey'' for them, but I will prat for them!
B) WWII was well under way in Europe when Japan attacked us.
So what is your point exactly?
Posted by obamathenig at 02:00 AM : Nov 10, 2008
I wonder whether Bush will wait much to pardon the betrayer Libby. We sure need to wait Bush out of office to go after those complicit with terrorists in Qatar and Saoudi.
This is the only ''''machine-tool'''' capacity we have!
If that goes then we will be 100% reliant on imports like Latin America and Africa. And when that happens, we will never be able to reverse the tides of ''''globalization''''.
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Posted by whitemale08 at 02:47 PM : Nov 09, 2008
It''s time for American businesses to grow up! If they can''t compete in a global market, let them die. We''ll still have american made cars; they''ll be called Toyota, Honda and Nissan. These companies will pick up their production and be hiring more americans to do the work. Not ONE MORE CENT of american tax dollars should be spent to prop these failed business managers up.
in too the 2nd world war and then let the USSR start
the cold war for 45 years and obama is a no nothing
junior senator from IL lets see history repeats who
got elected by stupid white people
This is why he likes to gather a bunch of ''experts'' with opposing ideologies and let them hash out a consensus for him to ''stamp'' with approval.
However in this financial crisis, one of the experts should be Lyndon Larouche.
larouchepac.com
What about the 100 days?
Posted by Hitoyou1 at 02:44 PM : Nov 09, 2008
Why would it make a difference what color...
Secret Service blamed Palin for sudden spike in Obama death threats
Tim Shipman at the UK Telegraph has more:
Details of the spike in threats to Mr Obama come as a report last week by security and intelligence analysts Stratfor, warned that he is a high risk target for racist gunmen. It concluded: "Two plots to assassinate Obama were broken up during the campaign season, and several more remain under investigation. We would expect federal authorities to uncover many more plots to attack the president that have been hatched by white supremacist ideologues."
Irate John McCain aides, who blame Mrs Palin for losing the election, claim Mrs Palin took it upon herself to question Mr Obama''s patriotism, before the line of attack had been cleared by Mr McCain.
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Posted by Hitoyou1 at 02:37 PM : Nov 09, 2008--
Listen we have to do whatever it takes to not let these auto companies dissapear.
This is the only ''machine-tool'' capacity we have!
If that goes then we will be 100% reliant on imports like Latin America and Africa. And when that happens, we will never be able to reverse the tides of ''globalization''.
What about the 100 days?
Obama is nout our president yet and doesn''''t belong at the conference!
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Posted by stlouisman3 at 01:15 PM : Nov 09, 2008--
We cannot allow Bush to sign a ''currency treaty'' without the imput of our future leader and President Obama.
Do want the new Bretton-Woods to fail forcing Obama to scrap the new treaty and cause more instability?
You are MAD dude!!!
Posted by stlouisman3 at 01:40 PM : Nov 09, 2008
"black man"
Posted by likeitis5050 at 01:39 PM : Nov 09, 2008
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I wonder why some of you find in necessary to refer to President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama as "black." Is your racism showing; you don''t refer to other people as "white."
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See all 93 Comments