What we should fear

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering ... they are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred."

—Franklin D. Roosevelt, running for re-election, 1936

Don't you wish that President Obama had said those words? Wouldn't it have been something to see him go on TV and tell the nation that during the recent raising-the-debt wars?

But he didn't, as we know. He made a deal instead to raise the debt ceiling slightly, and set up a bipartisan congressional committee to study the problem and come up with a proposal in the next three months to dial the deficit down further.

When that was done, he went forth from the glowing flat screens of America, and pronounced these anything-but-deathless words: "Now, is this the deal I would have preferred? No."

"But this compromise does make a serious down payment on the deficit reduction that we need," he said in words that could maybe flutter the heart of an ancient accounts payable clerk at J.C. Penney. That is, if they were true, which they aren't, really.

Frankly, it's easy to be scathingly critical of the president these days. He seems to be sleepwalking sometimes, or led around by the nose by a band of reactionary Republicans.

Yet in his defense, remember this. He knows the buck stops with him — and clearly felt that someone had to be the adult in the room. Obama has opponents who cheerfully would take the country down the default drain just to get some political traction. 

This president bailed out the irresponsible financial institutions that did so much to create the mess because he felt the alternative might have been economic collapse. Bailed out the auto industry too, for the same reason.

He also wants to restore a sense of collegiality and sanity. That's why he didn't call the GOP out last week for their stalling and delaying tactics, and other lunacies.

There was a time, he knows, when Washington was a place where well-intended men played politics, yes, but in the end did the best they could for this country and its people.

Unfortunately, for too many today, the game is all about winning. Others are so stone ignorant, happily misinformed or ideologically blinded they are unable or unwilling to see the consequences of their actions.

Naturally, there have always been some like that. Joe McCarthy. Huey Long, etc. But they were exceptions. Reckless stupidity is now the norm.

> Email Jack Lessenberry