Madison? Madison? He's the president you look to for inspiration?

FDR was certainly no saint but at least he made an attempt to alleviate the suffering of Americans. Besides being a founding father, which I will grant you is a big deal, what was so great about Madison?

I would say virtually nothing. He was a smart guy. But I can't really thing of a single thing that makes him strike me as visionary.

All of our presidents are flawed men. They are human. I'd take FDR or slave-owning Thomas Jefferson over "great thinker but awful doer" Madison.

The point of Madison is he is the type of character who would do what we need most now - return power to the correct proportions. All presidents are indeed flawed, agreed, but my point is that at a time when we are dealing with massive power abuse - we do not need an FDR.

But Madison didn't actually do that. He WROTE about it, but he didn't do it, which is what Kaliroz is saying, I think. Madison didn't want government doing anything at ALL until 1792, when furthering his position as the historical conservative poster boy, he pushed for military might with a strikingly familiar conviction about American strength: that it was a lot stronger than anyone else's. (danger, will robinson!)

THAT's Madison the man: a brilliant thinker, die-hard constructionist, and a mediocre-at-best president who watched the White House burn before his very eyes.

Call me crazy, but FDR - what with that whole New Deal thing and all, you know just a tiny bit of good presidential sense - sounds like a walk in the park instead. And kaliroz, I'd take Jeff too.

Like I said, a lot of people want him. But, with the whole Japanese internment, court-packing, and privacy invasions I am just a tad be reserved to resurrect the man. The New Deal, as the other author even pointed out, is something he himself would have pulled by now. The debate is over making calls for a man like FDR - who had tons of undeniably wrong (and illegal) activities at the same time there are people calling for the impeachment of Bush. I just find it ironic to want to pull someone out for complete abuse of power, only to replace them with someone else known for the same thing. I find it hard to complain about privacy and Guantanamo, then say you are ok with FDR. But, to each their own.

A call for the return of men like FDR from the same person who is calling for the impeachment of our present president is a bit of an about face in thinking.

There are too many parallel abuses of power in the FDR administration and the present one for me to think calling on men like the amiable-yet-domineering Roosevelt is a good idea.

Raleigh-- I'm sure your high school football coach/history teacher told you it was a good thing to make connections, but your attempt to classify Madison in terms of modern political movements only underscores your complete lack of understanding. Madison (due to his CONSERVATIVE principles) traditionally opposed the creation of a standing army. After the war however, he conceded it to be a necessary defensive precaution... hardly the "conviction" of a pro military might "typical conservative poster boy". I mean, your usage of that term doesn't even make any sense, since conservatives of the time held the opposite stance. It's called HISTORICAL CONTEXT. So yeah, he responded to military defeat by strengthening the military. Weren't you just criticizing him for his lack of action? You've literally contradicted yourself three times in as many sentences. Please, just put down the keyboard sweetheart.

Will, "conservative" and "liberal" are monikers that didn't switch. You're confused - it's "republican" and "democrat" that did. The adjective "conservative" is an attribution that has meant the same thing from a political perspective since the dawn of Rome.

He was a conservative, regardless of party, and he is revered by the same today.

But you misunderstand Madison as well. He did not simply respond to the threat on his homeland, he was caught off guard - much like our current president - and responded with an unbridled belief in the power of his military, contrary to the advice of many around him. He assumed it much stronger than it was, infllating America's "military might" and resulting in the deaths of thousands of young men both his contemporaries and his historians deem a waste.

Perhaps you should read the Heritage Foundation's (that bastion of conservative thought) Madison thread - or even Willis' biography, if you really want that "historical context."

Madison was provincial, cerebral, slightly dull man with no executive skill whose presidency was a near disaster.

There terms conservative and liberal have no place at all in a discussion of the Founding Fathers. You're either a Federalist or and anti-Federalist, and if you can't follow that much, it's time to be quiet about Madison. Madison was a Federalist, in so much as he supported the ratification of the Constitution. During the Washington administration, Federalist came to mean a support of Washington, Adams and Hamilton and their Federalist faction (party) which suported a fairly active executive with strong national instutitions (like a national bank and standing army) and other policies that are generally characterized as favoring manufacturing, development and urban growth. Jefferson and Madison created the Democratic-Republican party that favored a more agricultural economy and less federal action, inheriting the anti-Federalist elements of the political spectrum. To categorize early American political activities with "conservative" and "liberal" is just absurd, though. The issues and principles just aren't comparable.

And then Jefferson became President and kind of did an about-face on the active federal government thing. Madison, too, did an about face. During the War of 1812, he pretty much did a 180, comes around to support a standing army and navy, a national bank, and other federal activities.

Jefferson and Madison are kind of like GWBush in that they campaigned on the principle of smaller, less active government, but changed their tune as soon as it was them in power.

Madison, when he was writing the Federalist papers, before the Constitution was ratified, was the most fascinated with the checks and balances in the system, arguing that they would ensure the sustainability of the republican model of government. He's also the guy who wrote, "Let ambition counteract ambition," in reference to what we would call special interests.

But to say we need a Madison? I don't think so. He wasn't very remarkable as a President, though he was brilliant as a Founding Father.

FDR, too... he's not that amazing. Mostly, he through a lot of money at a lot of problems, and wasn't afraid to change course until he found something that worked. I don't think the comparison between him and GWBush is fair concerning wiretapping, internment, privacy and security. The threats were very, very different in scale and in liklihood. The 1930s saw a lot of crazy things going on in the world, and the US was by no means the secure Superpower we're used to. The Nazis and Japanese were a real threat. Our modern social conscience about privacy, internment and surveillance were developed after WWII. To judge FDR on principles that hadn't been developed isn't fair to him. It's like faulting Washington for owning slaves.

I really love the way this commenting system removes all your line breaks. Awesome.

"Our modern social conscience about privacy, internment and surveillance were developed after WWII."

I think a quick scan of the Alien and Sedition Acts, as well as the Sedition and Espionage acts would show there have always been serious issues in the American conscience over privacy, internment, and surveillance. And, I find it unlike faulting Washington for owning slaves - slaves were not illegal when Washington owned them and did not constitute an abuse to power. Many of FDR's programs were illegal, as one can see in the Congressional records of the debates over them (and some of their forced removal immediately after implementation) and many people felt - at the time - that they were blatant disregards for both the Constitution as well as human rights.

But I guess since Guantanamo exists, one could say the American conscience is ok with that.

To say "the threats were a very different scale and liklihood" is to ignore the facts at least: no Japanese person arrested was guilty. Guantanomo is operating at a MUCH smaller scale, and it does contain some people convicted previously of terrorism. Granted, I consider it a gross abuse, but I do not see the dismissal of Japanese interment as 'understandable.'

And I would only call FDR a walk in the park if you were not Japanese, otherwise I do believe you were locked in a camp with everything you own taken from you - and unable to access said parks.

it's ENTIRELY fair to fault washington for owning slaves, and jefferson too. it's a morality issue, screw context. plenty of people didn't own slaves. but did you guys even take history in college? they did use 'liberal' and 'conservative' then and it's naive to think you shouldn't apply standards to founding fathers just because you grew up revering them. we didn't invent democracy.

this fdr debate has gotten boring. which president do you actually think did the best job, besides these 2?

Faulting Washington for owning slaves is like condemning the US for using nukes on Japan. While we had some sense of the ramifications, there wasn't an established social conviction against it; it’s not the same sort of transgression that dropping a nuke today would be. There was a fledgling abolitionist movement at the time of the Constitutional Convention, but there certainly wasn't any social consensus on the issue. Even the members of the abolitionist society in New York balked at Hamilton's plan for the gradual freeing of their slaves and rejected the plan. There was still a debate over whether and how slaves should be freed, what the obligation and responsibility of the owner was to the slaves, and what their rights would be in the states. Further, you could argue that, as a political leader, freeing his slaves would have sent a message to southern slaveholders and undermined the strength of the young nation. Washington and Jefferson didn't free their slaves, but you can't hold them to the same standard that you would hold a modern day slave-holder.

Liberal and conservative, the political categories we use today, don't match up with the early republic's political categories, regardless of whether they would have used the term to describe their political spectrum. To use the terms to describe political operations then suggests a parallel between conservatives then and conservatives today and liberals then and liberals today that is misleading. For example, a “conservative” in the 1790s opposed the U.S. having a standing army or navy at all, not a stance you would associate with a modern conservative.

Name a good president:

Eisenhower. Ended Korea, ran an efficient executive office, created the interstate highway system, founded NASA, created the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, intervene in Lebanon briefly to support the pro-Western government there, walked a fine line in Vietnam supporting the French but not getting us mired in the mess, federalized the Arkansas National Guard in order to force the integration of public schools. On the down side, he had the President of the Congo assassinated and was responsible for adding “under God” to the pledge and “In God We Trust” to money.

Kristen, I don’t see your point about the Alien and Sedition Acts concerning privacy, surveillance and internment. The real problem with them was the Sedition Act, which essentially criminalized criticizing the president. It was stupid and unconstitutional and has been considered so basically since enacted. The other three pieces of legislation, extending the naturalization process and providing for the deportation of non-citizens during the time of war we’re particularly controversial. And, actually, the part about deporting aliens when their home country is at war with us is still on the books today. None of them deal with privacy, surveillance or internment and they certainly don’t demonstrate that those issues have always been serious issues in the American conscience.

The purpose of the internment camps was not to arrest Japanese collaborators; it was to prevent collaboration from occurring. The entire west coast was defined as an exclusion zone for all Japanese and Japanese-Americans, and any there were relocated. It wasn’t an exercise of justice; it was a preventative security measure. That no one was convicted of anything is besides the point – the point is that they never had the chance to commit the crime to begin with. And it’s worth noting that exclusion zones were ruled constitutional exercises of executive authority by the Supreme Court in 1944. It’s actually a fairly interesting read. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=323&invol=214

But I maintain my point that the threats FDR was facing were of a different scale and scope than what GWB is facing. Most importantly, FDR was actually at war, and both the USSC and the American people are willing to accept that times of war permit the abrogation of rights. Lincoln had his habeus corpus issues, FDR had internment, but when it comes down to it, despite these actions that would have been unacceptable in times of peace, in times of war they are allowed. The Frankfurter concurring opinion “quote[s] approvingly the statement of former Chief Justice Hughes that the war power of the Government is 'the power to wage war successfully.'” In the same way that the Commerce Department has implied powers to successfully regulate commerce, the war department has implied powers to successful wage war. To close and come full circle, I’ll quote Hamilton in Federalist 31:
“A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people.
As the duties of superintending the national defense and of securing the public peace against foreign or domestic violence involve a provision for casualties and dangers to which no possible limits can be assigned, the power of making that provision ought to know no other bounds than the exigencies of the nation and the resources of the community.”

So anyway, social morals shouldn't be applied retroactively; calling Founding Fathers liberal or conservative serves to mislead; Eisenhower was the man; I don't think the comparison between FDR and GWB is appropriate or instructive, and apparently I really didn't want to go to work this afternoon.

Seriously, fix the line breaks problem or have some instructions on what code to use. didn't work, but the page did scan the comment to edit them out.

Chris, despite this convo being carried on elsewhere, a point for here: you forgive FDR because it was wartime and wartime allows those to overstep boundaries - fine. but realize most people consider now wartime, and forgive GWB for doing the same. my main point is something you clarified more than i did: FDR overstepped serious boundaries. I find it hard to say IMPEACH BUSH for overstepping his lines, while yelling BRING BACK FDR! and i was trying to remind people that FDR was not just the wonderful man in the wheelchair who helped the poor. It was a rebuttal to linked LATimes article, and the point of this one to remind people of the things they seem so happy to forget with FDR. Now, buy me a beer and let's play more TP.

and OBVIOUSLY we are at war, what i meant by 'consider now wartime' is referring to the ongoing 'war on terrorism,' but i really messed up that wording. i meant people will forgive him for overstepping boundaries even without Iraq because of said 'war on terror'

I agree, we're in a war-like state, but we haven't declared war. Legally, there's a difference.

And I agree with the premise that we don't need another FDR... I just don't think FDR/Bush is a very good parallel.