Obama and Theodore Roosevelt

I will introduce this topic, Obama and Theodore Roosevelt, with a December 7, 2011 transcript from Real Clear Politics:

MICHAEL MOORE, ON CNN: Well, "The Washington post" three weeks ago had this investigation and they said that President Obama has now raised more money from Wall Street and the banks for this election cycle than all -- than all eight Republicans combined. I don't want to say that, because if that's the truth, that Wall Street already has their man and his name is Barack Obama, then we've got a much bigger problem.

But I think President Obama, if he were here in the room, the question I would ask him is why are they your number one contributors? Why are you taking this money?

MORGAN: It's fascinating to find out why they're doing it. I'll ask him.

MOORE: What are they expecting in return in the second term from you? Right now, here's what we do know. Goldman Sachs was your number one contributor the 2008 election. And we have not seen anyone from Goldman Sachs go to jail. We have not seen the regulations, Glass/Steagall, put back on to Wall Street now three years after the crash.

Why hasn't that happened? President Obama, we the people need you to take them by the throat and say, damn it, this is the United States of America; you don't steal from the working people of this country. And this is the way it's going to be.
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Let's think about this Michael Moore exchange. People are just figuring this out now--that Obama and the Democrats prostitute themselves for political donations from investment bankers? It's not (only) the Republicans that are in the back pocket of Wall Street?

What's fitting is that the Michael Moore transcript speaks to the policies of Theodore Roosevelt (TR), so I particularly enjoyed Obama reliving Theodore Roosevelt's famous New Nationalism speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. There are plenty of interesting quotes from Obama's speech.

Obama: Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments – wealthier than ever before. But everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and pay checks that weren't – and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up....Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off. Huge bets – and huge bonuses – made with other people's money on the line.

Not one of these bankers went to jail, by the way. It's too bad that Obama did not read this line from TR's New Nationalism speech: "I believe that the officers, and, especially, the directors, of corporations should be held personally responsible when any corporation breaks the law." Instead Obama said:

And in 1910, Teddy Roosevelt came here to Osawatomie and he laid out his vision for what he called a New Nationalism. "Our country," he said, "means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy … of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him." Now, for this, Roosevelt was called a radical. He was called a socialist – even a communist. But today, we are a richer nation and a stronger democracy because of what he fought for in his last campaign: an eight-hour work day and a minimum wage for women, insurance for the unemployed and for the elderly, and those with disabilities; political reform and a progressive income tax.

Obama's use of TR was misleading. He did not make two important facts clear. TR had not been president for two years, and he and his Progressive Bull Moose party lost the 1912 election and the party dissolved shortly thereafter. The American people rejected TR's approach in 1912. But, OK, let's look at what TR said and meant in his speech. TR believed in a progressive income tax on those with "big fortunes," not you and me. TR also said (in the New Nationalism speech) that "capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights." That doesn't sound very communist. He says that wages and hours should be reasonable but mentions neither an eight-hour day or a minimum wage. He mentions " national laws to regulate child labor and work for women," but gives no specifics. Perhaps this came out of his campaign at another point, but it was Woodrow Wilson that passed the income tax (promising a top rate of ten percent) and Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal 23 years later that would put many of these ideas into legislation.

Most importantly, TR also said in the speech: "There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done."

Obama seems to have glossed over that line too. Real progressives should stop taking donations from groups that work against the society they want. Fake progressives just go after the money.