The leadership qualities of Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower deserve special scrutiny because their common and contrasting... qualities illumine the nature of "charismatic" leadership in the Presidency. James M Burns, by calling his study of Roosevelt The Lion and the Fox, placed him in the tradition of Machiavellian strategy, and there is little question that Roosevelt used imaginative daring and pugnacity along with the cunning maneuver. Both qualities led him deep into party politics, where he fought the unfaithful ... and smote the heathen without. Eisenhower had less both of the lion and the fox; he was not savage in attack, but usually soft-spoken; and he affected the style of staying outside political involvement and keeping above the party battles.... He understood the deep American impulse toward the belittling of politics, and by seeming to avoid partisanship he could win more converts to his cause than the most partisan leader.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Despite the great differences in the objectives of the two men, there are important similarities between them. The most obvious on...es are in the area of personality. Both presidents had a quick smile and a pleasant air about them. People liked Roosevelt, as they did Reagan, almost without regard for his policies.... Both men led charmed political lives, in which they were praised for everything people liked, while the blame for all problems fell on others. FDR was a "Teflon president" long before Teflon was invented. After Roosevelt had won re-election to a second term, he had the temerity to point out that "one-third of the nation" was "ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." And in his re-election campaign in 1984, Reagan continued to run against the "gov-mint," as he disdainfully pronounced it, even after having been in charge of it for nearly four years. And Franklin Roosevelt was the first "media president," clearly deserving the title "Great Communicator." He charmed radio listeners much as Reagan did his television audiences.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is difficult to find a reputable American historian who will acknowledge the crude fact that a Franklin Roosevelt, say, wanted ...to be President merely to wield power, to be famed and to be feared. To learn this simple fact one must wade through a sea of evasions: history as sociology, leaders as teachers, bland benevolence as a motive force, when, finally, power is an end to itself, and the instinctive urge to prevail the most important single human trait, the necessary force without which no city was built, no city destroyed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... [Washington] is always an entertaining spectacle. Look at it now. The present President has the name of Roosevelt, marked faci...al resemblance to Wilson, and no perceptible aversion, to say the least, to many of the policies of Bryan. The New Deal, which at times seems more like a pack of cards thrown helter skelter, some face up, some face down, and then snatched in a free-for-all by the players, than it does like a regular deal, is going on before our interested, if puzzled eyes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Honestly, the real trouble is ... a gang which unfortunately survives--made up mostly of those who were isolationists before Decem...ber seventh and who are actuated today by various motives in their effort to instill disunity in the country.... The best comment I have heard was by Elmer Davis.... "Some people want the United States to win so long as England loses. Some people want the United States to win so long as Russia loses. Some people want the United States to win so long as Roosevelt loses."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This I do know and can say to you: Our country is in more danger now than at any time since the Declaration of Independence. We do...n't dare follow the Lindberghs, Wheelers and Nyes, casting suspicion, sowing discord around the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt. We don't want revolution among ourselves.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A President Roosevelt comes only once in a century. I believe God knew and does know of the need of the world at this moment. I do...n't believe President Roosevelt is an accident in time, or that it is an accident that he is President for a third time. I believe that Franklin D. Roosevelt truly is the voice of liberty in the world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »