FDR would have a hard time fitting in with today's Democratic Party.

That post title is just putting 2 things together.

1. In yesterday's NYT: "But tough talk about the state of the [Republican] party on Monday by former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida — who went so far as to say that Ronald Reagan and his father would have a 'hard time' fitting in during this Tea Party era — exhibited a growing distance between the [Bush] family, which until not very long ago embodied mainstream Republicanism, and the no-compromise conservative activists now driving the party."

2. A big meme in the Wisconsin recall election: 

Roosevelt's reign certainly was the bright dawn of modern unionism. The legal and administrative paths that led to 35% of the nation's workforce eventually unionizing by a mid-1950s peak were laid by Roosevelt.

But only for the private sector. Roosevelt openly opposed bargaining rights for government unions.

"The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," Roosevelt wrote in 1937 to the National Federation of Federal Employees. Yes, public workers may demand fair treatment, wrote Roosevelt. But, he wrote, "I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place" in the public sector. "A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government."

And if you're the kind of guy who capitalizes "government," woe betide such obstructionists.

Roosevelt wasn't alone. It was orthodoxy among Democrats through the '50s that unions didn't belong in government work. Things began changing when, in 1959, Wisconsin's then-Gov. Gaylord Nelson signed collective bargaining into law for state workers. Other states followed, and gradually, municipal workers and teachers were unionized, too....

(Isn't it interesting that Wisconsin led the way into the unionization of government workers and now it's leading the way out?)

"Newt is a Vessel: He Won South Carolina Because He Articulated Conservatism."

Speaking of articulation, I thought Rush Limbaugh articulated this really well on his show yesterday:

To those of you in the Republican base, this isn't complicated.  Newt is winning. He is on a momentum roll here because he can articulate conservatism, that and he's willing to take it to Obama.  I have said for the longest time that whoever does that, whoever articulates conservatism with passion, with love, cause that's love of country, with good cheer.... cannot be beat....

Now, this presents a huge stumbling block potential for Newt.  He is vulnerable on the very thing he can do better than anybody else.  He had better fully embrace his conservatism and not make it a part-time thing.  The days of being able to keep this momentum going by ripping on the media are over.  The standing ovations for taking on the media are over, or they have a very short life span.  He can't live on that anymore.  Been there, done that.  It's gonna get old and it's gonna look like it's been set up....

I was just talking to someone who expressed the belief that the standing Os were orchestrated, that — at the South Carolina debate — you can hear them begin and end as if a leader were giving hand motions.

Now, Newt keeps pushing off any questions on his anti-conservative statements.  And he better not.  I think Newt is just as vulnerable on his anti-conservatism as Romney is on Romneycare.  "What do you mean by that, Rush?"  Very simple.  Newt has made it plain two or three times that he's very open to the concept of manmade global warming.  He can blow this by sitting on the couch with Pelosi again or something that is equivalent.  Newt has in the past had some unflattering things to say about capitalism.  His time at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a vulnerability. Saying that FDR is the best president, his favorite president, that doesn't jibe with being a conservative.  His open support for single payer health insurance with a mandate.  I'm just telling you, Newt's not out of the woods here....

So let a long campaign happen.  Let a long, drawn-out campaign happen, let's flush 'em out here....

The Wisconsin protesters "are exactly the people that the O.W.S. crowd should not learn from..."

"... if they aspire to appeal to a wider audience than left-wing activists usually reach," writes Ross Douthat in the NYT. They represent "the decadent left, which fights for narrow interest groups rather than for the public as a whole."

The Wisconsin protests didn’t defend American workers’ right to bargain for their fair share of company profits, as traditional union protests have. They defended government employees’ right to negotiate with elected officials over the division of taxpayer dollars — a recipe for profligacy that even liberal icons like Franklin Roosevelt and the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s George Meany once opposed....

Whatever your politics, there’s arguably more to admire in the ragtag theatricality of Occupy Wall Street than in that sort of self-righteous defense of the status quo. Even if it has failed to embrace plausible solutions, O.W.S. at least picked a deserving target — what National Review’s Reihan Salam describes as the “moral rupture” created by Wall Street’s and Washington’s betrayal of the public trust.

Who's this baby?

Hint:

When I was born my granddad wanted to send a telegram to the president. Both sides of my family were staunch New Deal Democrats, and Granddad was sure that FDR would want to know about the “little stranger” with whom he now had a birthday in common.

After you've answered, click here.

ADDED: Page 29:

I traveled from job to job with one large suitcase, driving a 1949 Chevy for a while. When it had to be junked, I hitched a ride or caught a bus until I managed to buy a ’58 Ford. Living accommodations were never fancy, usually a room in an old hotel or roadside motel....

After work, the guys on the crew would spend considerable time in one of the local bars, ideally a place that would cash our checks or carry a tab until we made our first payday. We consumed vast quantities of beer. If something stronger was called for, we’d drink shots of bourbon with beer chasers—a combination that helps explain how I managed to get arrested twice within a year for driving while under the influence....

And I was sleeping off a hangover in the Rock Springs jail. It had taken a lot to drive the message home, but I realized the morning I woke up in that jail that if I didn’t fundamentally change my ways, I was going to come to a bad end.

"Obama is not a flaccid Jimmy Carter... He is instead a Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- but a bizarro FDR."

David Sirota strains to understand and characterize the President.

In forging such bipartisan complicity with what were once exclusively right-wing Republican objectives, Obama has achieved even more than what he fantasized about when he famously celebrated a previous bizarro FDR. In an illustrative 2008 interview with a Nevada newspaper, Obama lauded Ronald Reagan for "chang[ing] the trajectory of America" and "put[ting] us on a fundamentally different path."

Reagan was a truly strong executive -- but the Gipper was nothing compared to our current president.

Got that, wingers?

"The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service."

FDR wrote in 1937, quoted by Real Clear Politics:

Yes, public workers may demand fair treatment, wrote Roosevelt. But, he wrote, "I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place" in the public sector. "A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government."

Judge Posner says maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if FDR's Court-packing plan had passed.

"It would have increased turnover on the Court, reduced the average age of justices, made an appointment to the Court less prestigious, and made the justices more cautious about bucking strong political forces, because they would have learned that Congress was willing as well as able to rein them in. We would probably have been spared the excesses of the Warren Court, which turned Roosevelt’s idea of the 'living Constitution' on its head: where Roosevelt wanted the Court to stand aside so that the government could deal with the distinctive problems of modernity, the Warren Court responded to the surging crime rates of the 1950s and 1960s by increasing the rights of criminals."

That's snazzily put, but it's really saying the same old thing about judicial restraint. Deference to legislatures in FDR's day served a liberal goal, and the activists were the conservatives. In later decades, judicial activism was mobilized for liberal ends. Over time, conservatives and liberals have used both judicial restraint and judicial activism to suit their ends.

The more fundamental question is whether we'd be better off if the judicial branch were subordinated to the political branches. I would think that conservatives and liberals alike — the full range across the political spectrum — benefit from a system of separated powers with 3 branches that are well-balanced and strong within their own spheres.

We can fight forever about exactly what the 3 spheres of power really are and what constitutesproper balance — when courts should act and when they should defer to the democratic branches — but I balk at the invitation to be wistful about the missed opportunity to weaken and subordinate the courts.

Glenn Greenwald flails absurdly in a lame effort to take down Justice Alito.

Really, it drives me crazy to try to plow through the unedited dreck that Greenwald writes, but I feel compelled to defend Justice Samuel Alito who, when affronted by President Obama's accusation that the Supreme Court violated judicial norms, simply shook his head and mouthed (apparently) "not true."

Greenwald accuses Alito of "a serious and substantive breach of protocol that reflects very poorly on Alito and only further undermines the credibility of the Court." Further! Presumably, you're already against the Supreme Court, and Greenwald isn't using this post to bring you up to speed.

It has nothing to do with etiquette and everything to do with the Court's ability to adhere to its intended function.

There's a reason that Supreme Court Justices -- along with the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- never applaud or otherwise express any reaction at a State of the Union address. It's vital -- both as a matter of perception and reality -- that those institutions remain apolitical, separate and detached from partisan wars. 

Uh, yeah, which is why Obama's words were such an affront. Obama called the Citizens United case a "wrong," that is, a legal outrage of some sort, but, obviously, Alito's position is that the Court decided the case according to the law, that it said what the First Amendment means, and that its legal expertise is entitled to respect.

Alito's response didn't signify political disagreement. It was simply self-defense — a defense of the Court. It meant: We decide cases according to the law. That is apolitical.

Justice Alito's flamboyantly insinuating himself into a pure political event, in a highly politicized manner, will only hasten [the Court's] decline.

Shaking one's head and mouthing 2 or 3 words is "flamboyant"? Alito was sitting in his seat and he evinced a subtle reaction to a severe political attack. That doesn't make what he did "highly politicized." If anyone was "highly politicized," it was Obama. Alito's response was more of a reflex, and it was, I would assume, grounded in a belief that the Court does what it is supposed to do — decide cases according to the law.

On a night when both tradition and the Court's role dictate that he sit silent and inexpressive, he instead turned himself into a partisan sideshow -- a conservative Republican judge departing from protocol to openly criticize a Democratic President...

Oh, bullshit. He's a sideshow because he flinches when hit? He's modestly human and not a mannequin. I remember when Obama expressed a desire for Supreme Court Justices with a more sensitive emotional response. Empathy.

Obama is an elected politician in a political branch and has every right to express his views on such a significant court ruling. While the factual claims Obama made about the ruling are subject to reasonable dispute, they're well within the realm of acceptable political rhetoric and are far from being "false"...

But shouldn't Obama have shown some respect for the members of the third branch of government who honored him with their presence? What is the "acceptable political rhetoric" when one person has the microphone for over an hour and everyone else is supposed to listen respectfully? Really, if it were known in advance that Obama wanted to use the occasion this way, the Supreme Court Justices should have stayed home. Or send over 1 or 2 that do opinions that the big man likes.

While Presidents do not commonly criticize the Court in the SOTU address, it is far from unprecedented either. 

The link goes to Tony Mauro at The Legal Times, who says that this kind of talk is "almost unprecedented." "Almost unprecedented" = "far from unprecedented"? Come on, Glenn. Your sleaziness is showing.

[Alito] unmasked himself as a politicized and intemperate Republican as well. 

Huh? Alito flinched at a surprising jab. The President told the Justices to their face that they were, essentially, power abusers. It's not "Republican" to believe that your work is dutiful and honest. (Is it?) Alito's gestures meant nothing more than that.

Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin documents that roughly 25% of Franklin Roosevelt's 1937 State of the Union address was devoted to criticizing the Supreme Court and various rulings which struck down his domestic legislation. 

Roosevelt's attack on the Court — quoted by Balkin — was, at the most severe point: "We do not ask the Courts to call non-existent powers into being, but we have a right to expect that conceded powers or those legitimately implied shall be made effective instruments for the common good." Think about how much more respectful that was toward the Court than the blow that made Samuel Alito flinch last night.

Greenwald concludes:

Whatever one thinks of the one paragraph of Obama's address devoted to the Citizens United ruling, it was not "unprecedented."

Who is he quoting there? Balkin doesn't say "unprecedented." Is it Mauro's "almost unprecedented"? For all his annoying verbiage, Greenwald can't get anywhere in this effort to show that Obama was just fine and Alito did something outrageous. Pathetic!

Why the Obama honeymoon ended so abruptly.

"... Obama doesn't grasp the essentials of presidential leadership. Rather than making a compelling case for his economic policies, he has resorted to curt rebuffs, such as telling House Republican whip Eric Cantor, 'I won.' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the same thing the same day: 'We won the election; we wrote the [stimulus] bill.' This is the trope of a party that has lost its ability to make an argument. Mr. Obama and his team would be well advised to put aside the imperious FDR model and study Ronald Reagan's first 200 days in office. The contrast is instructive."