Thursday, January 24, 2013

Echoes of Roosevelt's 2nd Inaugural?

FDR: "We of the Republic pledged ourselves to drive from the temple of our ancient faith those who had profaned it... ...Our covenant with ourselves did not stop there. Instinctively, we recognized a deeper need—the need to find through government the instrument of our united purpose to solve for the individual the ever-rising problems of a complex civilization. . . . We refused to leave the problems of our common welfare to be solved by the winds of chance and the hurricanes of disaster."

Obama, defending the social commitments of FDR's New Deal (just some of his many reforms): "The commitments we make to each other — through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security — these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great."

Credit to E.J. Dionne for noticing the parallel.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/01/21/obamas-unapologetic-inaugural-address/



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