You know, there was a time when the United States of America was facing a real axis of evil. On November 5th, 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented third term in office. On November 14th and 15th, the Germans bombed Coventry, England. On November 20th, Hungary joins the Axis Powers. On November 23rd, Romania joins the Axis Powers. On December 29th and 30th, there was a massive German air raid on London.
Roosevelt’s opponent, Wendell Wilkie, had first accused FDR of military unpreparedness. When FDR signed a number of large military contracts, Wilkie shifted course and accused FDR of warmongering. Wilkie attacked the New Deal and accused Roosevelt of arrogance for running for a third-term. But, in the end, both parties were supportive of our efforts to keep Britain in the fight against Hitler.
:::flip:::
On Monday, January 20th, 1941, Roosevelt gave his State of the Union speech. Our country was at peace and undergoing an economic revival. Chicago and Detroit were suffering from a labor shortage, leading to a mass northern migration of southern black laborers. But Europe was inflamed in war. The Nazis were occupying Paris and bombing England. Our relations with the Japanese were growing increasingly tense. The future of democracy was in doubt.
In Roosevelt’s speech there was not one word of partisanship. He didn’t mention a single domestic program. He spoke, instead, of the Spirit of America. He spoke of things greater than material wealth. Roosevelt understood that our country would soon be brought into a war that both he and Wilkie had campaigned on avoiding. And he understood the stakes:
In the face of great perils never before encountered, our strong purpose is to protect and to perpetuate the integrity of democracy.
For this we muster the spirit of America, and the faith of America.
We do not retreat. We are not content to stand still. As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country, by the will of God.
Today we face threats, too. In 2001, we witnessed a scale of destruction in lower Manhattan never before seen on our soil. Nineteen men, fired with suicidal zeal, caused untold carnage and billions of dollars in damage. They perforated the psyche of the American public. The country was united, but the country was also fearful. It is to Bush’s everlasting detriment that he chose to eschew the former in order to inflame the latter.
Two weeks before Roosevelt’s State of the Union speech he gave another speech to a joint session of Congress. It is now known as the Four Freedoms Speech. Let’s take a look:
First, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to all-inclusive national defense.
Second, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to full support of all those resolute peoples, everywhere, who are resisting aggression and are thereby keeping war away from our Hemisphere. By this support, we express our determination that the democratic cause shall prevail; and we strengthen the defense and the security of our own nation.
Third, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to the proposition that principles of morality and considerations for our own security will never permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers. We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people’s freedom.
In the recent national election there was no substantial difference between the two great parties in respect to that national policy. No issue was fought out on this line before the American electorate.
Long before Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt was readying the country for a long, difficult struggle. And he sought no political advantage; he did not look to enrich his friends, or ask future generations to pay the cost. Most of all, he sought to preserve our liberties:
A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my Budget Message I shall recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying today. No person should try, or be allowed, to get rich out of this program; and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.
If the Congress maintains these principles, the voters, putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks, will give you their applause.
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression–everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way–everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want–which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear–which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
Compare these sentiments with the following:
“Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers,”- Karl Rove, June, 2005.
Bush should avoid the errors of his father, who is widely viewed as having failed to leverage the successful Persian Gulf War into other political victories. The war against terror, Rove said, ‘will create political capital. If you don’t spend it, it’s not like treasures stuck away in [a storehouse someplace] it is perishable.’”- Karl Rove, 2002.
“We can go to the country on this issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America’s military might and thereby protecting America,”- Karl Rove, at the Republican National Committee meeting in Austin, Texas 2002.
