A Look At What A Real President Was Like

I’m not sure when politics became a dirty word. But there was a time when it was a noble profession. When the best the the brightest sought to serve, and when differences of opinion were about how to better the lives of all people, not just those at the top, or those at the margins, or those in power.

To successfully engage in politics tooks a very special skill set, that was about understanding people and what they wanted, and forming coalitions to compromise and get things done. How far we have fallen from that ideal.

It was Bismarck who said that “politics was the art of the possible.” Few understood this better than the 32nd President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt. Presidential historian Robert Dallek takes a deep dive into the political Roosevelt, in  Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

My conversation with Robert Dallek:

Lost Peace, Lost Opportunities

In 1989 as the Cold War came to end, we thought we were at "the end of history." We thought the end of the great superpower rivalry would mark a new turning point for peace. Yet today, twenty years later, the world is perhaps more dangerous then during the height of the Cold War. How did this happen and what choices did our leaders make to create such a world?

In trying to figure this out, it's instructive to embrace the lessons of history. What happened at the end of WWII? After decades of violence and failed international policies, the end of that war should have provided a powerful framework for enduring peace. Instead we entered into the Cold War, nuclear proliferation, Korea, Vietnam, Israel and the Middle East and a host of new problems that we still live with today. What happened. This is the backdrop for The Lost Peace: Leadership in a Time of Horror and Hope, 1945-1953,a powerful new work by noted historian and presidential biographer Robert Dallek

My conversation with Robert Dallek:

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