Doris Kearns Goodwin: Obama Must Start Leading Like FDR in World War II

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Obama Must Start Leading Like FDR in World War Two (Mediaite)

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin toldMorning Joe Friday morning (it is Friday, right?) that President Barack Obama needed to engage the public about potential U.S. military escalation against ISIS the way President Franklin Roosevelt did in the days preceding America’s entry into what Abe Simpson calls the Second World War Two.

“When Roosevelt recognized that the Nazis were something different than we’d ever seen before and he started to talk about quarantining the dictators, the country wasn’t ready for it,” Goodwin said. “He said ‘It’s a terrible thing to lead a parade and look behind and nobody is following you.’”

“But [Obama] has to start leading that parade now. I think he has to get out of Washington, too. One of the things that Teddy Roosevelt did was be on trains, weeks every spring, talking at village stations, in simple language: speak softly and carry a big stick, the square deal. People have to understand this ISIS thing as clearly as we understood what it meant to be an arsenal of democracy for Britain, as clearly as Lend Lease.”