Franklin Roosevelt

THE DEBATE over whether the new FDR Memorial in Washington should include Franklin Roosevelt in a wheelchair is an example of Madisonian interest group politics run amok, the trivial driving out the essential.FDR, a symbol of 20th century America at its best, belongs on Mount Rushmore, not in a wheelchair. To save the day we must, for the second time this century, turn to the Gutzon Borglum model of civic action.Mount Rushmore, unlike the static monuments typically raised in the nation's capital, is a work in progress, a running chronicle of the American experience.

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. " - Thomas Jefferson My recent column on the challenges associated with the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program elicited numerous and very personal stories from readers about how individual (disabled) recipients depended on the program for daily maintenance. And, many asked, how dare I (and others of my ilk) question such a vital program?

Moscow -- Nothing in politics happens by accident here, and so it is with the latest image circulating in the carefully choreographed world of Russian political affairs: that of Vladimir Delano Roosevelt. It's an unlikely parallel - that between President Vladimir V. Putin and America's FDR - but none other than the Russian president's chief ideologist was shopping it at a similarly unlikely conference in Moscow last month marking the 125th anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt's birth. The topic: "Lessons of the New Deal for Modern Russia and the World."

Moscow -- Nothing in politics happens by accident here, and so it is with the latest image circulating in the carefully choreographed world of Russian political affairs: that of Vladimir Delano Roosevelt. It's an unlikely parallel - that between President Vladimir V. Putin and America's FDR - but none other than the Russian president's chief ideologist was shopping it at a similarly unlikely conference in Moscow last month marking the 125th anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt's birth. The topic: "Lessons of the New Deal for Modern Russia and the World."

SANDY SPRING -- The time has come once more for Delmas P. Wood Jr., retired insurance man, to rise to greatness. Time to strap on the iron leg braces, don the gray suit and fedora, step to the microphone and call upon Congress to declare war on Japan. Or glide past cheering crowds in the blue 1936 Ford Phaeton convertible, exuding the confidence that might yet lift a despairing nation. It is spring, after all, when Wood returns from Florida to get back on the circuit of parades and historic commemorations in the persona of his political hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who died 60 years ago this month.

A photo on the front page of the Aug. 4 Perspective section was missing a credit. The photo of a Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial should have been credited to Diane W. Blanks.The Sun regrets the error.The arguing continues on whether the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial park in Washington should contain a statue of FDR in a wheelchair. The National Organization on Disability and some other groups and individuals want one, contending that his disability was central to his life. The FDR Memorial Commission says "no," on the grounds that FDR went to great lengths to hide his polio-induced inability to stand or walk unaided and that desire should be honored.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT was the greatest president of this century. His greatness lay in his ability to give the nation hope in the midst of crushing Depression and to lead it to victory in World War II. But what was the wellspring of his vitality, of his joy in political battle, of his ability to identify so closely with millions of Americans whose lives differed so completely from his?Was it his intelligence, his intuitive sense about where destiny was leading, his ability to articulate and manipulate?

Washington. -- James Roosevelt, who died this week at 83, is there beside his father in a thousand photographs taken during World War II. He helped the disabled president both physically and politically by standing at his elbow in the uniform of a decorated Marine.For the rest of the son's life, help ran the other way. Jimmy got into movie production, radio commentary, politics and eventually some controversial business deals. His father's name opened every door, which is the norm for presidents' sons.

ANDY WARHOL was wrong. Everyone won't just have 15 minutes of fame. One day -- soon, I suspect -- we all will have our very own talk shows.What a proliferation of pundits and pontificators we have already. Even with Phil retiring, we've got Oprah, Geraldo, Sally Jessy, Jenny, Maury, Faith, Charley, Montel, Leeza . . . Leeza? Who are these people and what, aside from loose lips, gives them the talent to pose as talk-show hosts?Some became talk-show hosts because they failed at other slots, like, say, news anchor.

We must be getting close to Halloween"Unsolved Mysteries" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- Among tonight's subjects: High Priestess of Witchcraft Laurie Cabot, the official witch of Salem, Mass., who uses her abilities to help the local police department; and Sam Zelickson, a Holocaust survivor who won a $10 million lottery with a ticket bought at the urging of his dead son. NBC."It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" (8 p.m.-8: 30 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- What would Halloween be without this tale of Linus and that monster vegetable that flies through the air, leaving presents for children lucky enough to tend the sincerest pumpkin patch?

One of the many bizarre recommendations in the recent report from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group is the call to talk with Iran. A formal dialogue with the Iranian leadership is, for a number of reasons, as misguided as it is amoral. In these frightening times, as we face aggressive dictatorships, our guides still should be Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt - not the British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Joseph Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, who, leading up to 1939, thought good could come out of talking with the Nazis.

SANDY SPRING -- The time has come once more for Delmas P. Wood Jr., retired insurance man, to rise to greatness. Time to strap on the iron leg braces, don the gray suit and fedora, step to the microphone and call upon Congress to declare war on Japan. Or glide past cheering crowds in the blue 1936 Ford Phaeton convertible, exuding the confidence that might yet lift a despairing nation. It is spring, after all, when Wood returns from Florida to get back on the circuit of parades and historic commemorations in the persona of his political hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who died 60 years ago this month.

The disclosure that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has thyroid cancer has thrown into sharp focus a potent campaign issue - the powerful impact the next president is likely to have on an aging and narrowly divided Supreme Court. Rehnquist, the court's leading conservative figure for a generation, is expected to be back at work tomorrow morning after being hospitalized and undergoing surgery a week ago. But his return to the bench will be heavily weighted with questions about his prognosis and what it could mean for the future of the high court.

Eighty years ago, H.L Mencken observed, "The chief business of the nation, as a nation, is the setting up of heroes, mainly bogus." It may offer some solace, after the turmoil and upheavals of the 20th century, to reflect how little has changed. Last month's presidential candidate was marching infallibly to the nomination; this month he is a has-been. Last week's stock guru / diet guru / therapy guru turns out to be this week's charlatan. The ink hardly dries on the cover photo of the celebrity wedding before the issue with the celebrity divorce reaches the stands.

OVER THE weekend at the city's brand-new comedy club, The Improv, standup comic Lewis Black made a joke about George W. Bush. It wasn't a very good joke, but maybe it was an important one just because somebody dared to make it. Before Sept. 11, Black said, the president was "an idiot." After Sept. 11, "a genius." Then Black went into some of the schtick he performs to motorize his material. He shook his jowls. He rolled his eyes. He went into an entire orchestration of exasperations to show he was kidding and that Bush was, is and always would be the man he was before the day of terrorist attacks.

MIAMI -- What's the deal with great men lately? Meaning the celebrated ones who have enjoyed a certain moral authority by dint of job title or personal reputation. They've been falling like rain in recent years, felled by one embarrassing sexual revelation after another. I'm talking about Bob Packwood, Jimmy Swaggart, Dan Burton, Julius Erving, Bill Clinton. And now, Jesse Jackson, who just confessed to fathering a girl, now 20 months old, by a woman who is not his wife. Candidly, I'd probably be having a lot more fun with Mr. Jackson's predicament if he were some Bible-beating blowhard who'd made a career preaching so-called family values.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- It seems to be time once again for academia to rate the presidents, a phenomenon that occurs every decade or so.Like a hatch of 17-year locusts, historians and political scientists are suddenly emerging, each with a new and authoritative assessment of presidential performance.Much as his father did in 1948, Professor Arthur Schlesinger Jr. assembled a collection of 32 eminences some months ago to pronounce their version of the verdict of history.Most were historians or political scientists, including such durable stars as James MacGregor Burns and Doris Kearns Goodwin, but there was a politician or two in the group.

WASHINGTON -- In the final moment of the first act of "Eleanor: An American Love Story," we see Franklin Roosevelt embracing Lucy Mercer, the young assistant who was not specifically his wife.As everybody knows, such things happen. If Lucy Mercer wasn't exactly the Monica Lewinsky of her day -- for one thing, the country mercifully lacked a Kenneth Starr to out her -- her theatrical image at least helps us sense the family pain when Franklin found affection outside the marital bedroom, and shows how fortunate their timing was to live in a less vulgar era when the public's biggest concern was only an occasional world war."

WASHINGTON -- In the final moment of the first act of "Eleanor: An American Love Story," we see Franklin Roosevelt embracing Lucy Mercer, the young assistant who was not specifically his wife.As everybody knows, such things happen. If Lucy Mercer wasn't exactly the Monica Lewinsky of her day -- for one thing, the country mercifully lacked a Kenneth Starr to out her -- her theatrical image at least helps us sense the family pain when Franklin found affection outside the marital bedroom, and shows how fortunate their timing was to live in a less vulgar era when the public's biggest concern was only an occasional world war."

MOSCOW -- There was a time when Russians pitied Americans.Bystanders during the Great Depression of the 1930s, they felt vindicated in their belief in Soviet progress. But who wouldn't extend some sympathy toward the victims of the breakdown of capitalism?"Oh, my God, such a rich country, such a big country," says historian Edward Ivanian, recounting the way people thought back then and smiling ruefully at how history has turned. "And those poor people done in by the bankers, their wealth just poured down the drain."