FDR Biopic: Making a case for Secrecy?

[annabanana]

Judging from the ads I've seen for the upcoming History Channel's biography of FDR.. It looks like he'll be saddled with all kinds of justifications for secrecy..(and not just about his disability).

The ad also mentions "his secret plans for war".

It will be interesting to see if they stick to history.

[UTUSN]

1. Sounds Like a Revisionist Whack Job

Somebody here alerted us to one of the wingnut contributors. Will see if can find.
http://images.blogads.com/fejupssbxtupszdpn/rawstorypremiumadstrip/3228756/thumb?rev=rev_1

[UTUSN]

4. Thomas FLEMING Is the Reptile

*******QUOTE*******

http://www.historychannel.com/fdr/about.html

FDR: A PRESIDENCY REVEALED uses the recently discovered diary and voice recordings of cousin, confidante, and caregiver Daisy Suckley, 70 rarely seen photographs, an in-depth oral history recording from Eleanor, and extensive personal interviews with Curtis Roosevelt to cast FDR in a more human light than ever before. Historical perspective is provided by noted biographers Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham, as well as historians and authors including William Leuchtenburg, David Kennedy, Craig Wilder, Thomas Fleming, and Robert Dallek. On-location filming at Hyde Park, New York; Warm Springs, Georgia; and Campobello, New Brunswick, combines with extensive color and black-and-white footage of the life and times of FDR to take viewers on a journey back to twentieth-century America's defining time, and inside the life of the man who defined it.

(Highlights of Part 1)

.... 6. A balanced look at FDR's failures, including a disastrous attempt to reconfigure the Supreme Court.


7. Details of FDR's flawed relationship with Eleanor, including an affair he had in his thirties with Lucy Page Mercer that nearly resulted in divorce.


8. An inside look at the most overlooked event in FDR's entire presidency, when Tyler Kent, an American working at the U.S. Embassy in England, was found to have intercepted months' worth of secret correspondence between FDR and Winston Churchill, with the intention of providing the information to political enemies in an attempt to expose FDR as a liar for promising American neutrality in the fight against Germany.

(Highlights of Part 2)

.... 3. Eleanor's oral history about his strangely detached demeanor in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack. ....

5. Footage from FDR's secret escapes to Hyde Park during the war, in which he would relax with friends and mix martinis with a dash of absinthe, said by many to be the worst they'd ever tasted. ....

********UNQUOTE*******

[leveymg]

5. History Channel Trying to take down both the FDR and Kennedy legacies?

Looks like they're trying to besmirch both in one show. Recall that Jos. Kennedy (JFK's defeatist father)was Ambassador to the Court of St. James at the time.

8. An inside look at the most overlooked event in FDR's entire presidency, when Tyler Kent, an American working at the U.S. Embassy in England, was found to have intercepted months' worth of secret correspondence between FDR and Winston Churchill, with the intention of providing the information to political enemies in an attempt to expose FDR as a liar for promising American neutrality in the fight against Germany.

Well, you know what, Old Joe likely was an appeaser, if not an actual Nazi Fifth Columnist, and FDR may have been quite well aware that the Japanese Fleet was sailing to attack Pearl Harbor.

I don't like what Fleming has to say, either, but his "New Dealer's War" is required reading, if you want to know what was happening behind the scenes in Washington at that time.


:bounce:

[leveymg]

2. The really nasty little secret is FDR's alledged LIHOP at Pearl Harbor

I can image BushCo will eventually cite that historical precedent in their own defense during trial.

:bounce:

[MsTryska]

3. I've been hearing this ad on the radio as well....

the balls on these people. i'm absolutely disgusted.

[UTUSN]

6. LIMBOsevic Just Had an "outraged" Caller about This Thing

The caller and Limbo both were calling it "revisionist" but from the opposite extreme--both opposite from US, that is. The dittohead said that the program's tag line, "He became a shining star by keeping us in the dark," was outrageous because Libs are always griping about Shrub's Mal-administration being "secretive." To him it sounded like the supposed FDR "secrecy" was being praised while Shrub's was trashed.

LIMBOsevic made more of the program itself, interpreting it as going to be praising of FDR, that the timing was the big point, that it is all a conspiracy to bring down Shrub's Social Security plans, that FDR is a "GOD" to us Libs, that he originated our DEPENDENCY on the government, that he implanted our demand that the Dems be the permanent party in power. Gee, he even said FDR was "a man," one, to be sure, who had "shortcomings".

All I know is that the commercial has an ominous tone, down to the "evil" picture they use.

[theboss]

7. I'm curious about it.

Anyone who is interested in FDR knows that he was hardly an angel. A great president but a secretive and flawed man. So, I don't think talking about that is any kind of offense.

And the ad calls him a "shining light" so I doubt it will be a total hit piece. We'll see.