Early Warning

Jonah G.:

There were more than 35,000 pictures of FDR taken. Two show him in a wheelchair. Why? Because the press almost unanimously agreed that — despite the huge news value — depicting FDR as a cripple would be bad for the war effort. The few dissenting photographers from that consensus were routinely blocked or deliberately jostled by the senior photographers so as to shield FDR from embarrassment and the public from its "right to know."

Okay, this is a subject I know virtually nothing about. I do, however, know that FDR became president in 1933 after winning the 1932 election. The war in Europe didn't begin until 1939, and the United States didn't enter the war until 1941. Under the circumstances, that "depicting FDR as a cripple would be bad for the war effort" can't be the primary reason nobody ever did it.

Comments

The MSM extends the same deference and privacy to Charles Krauthammer lo these 70 years later that they afforded Roosevelt. What's up with that?

Posted by steve duncan | June 23, 2007 11:34 AM

Thank you. I was terrified that this incorrect idea wouldn't go away by itself.

Posted by Gary Sugar | June 23, 2007 11:40 AM

Not WWII, silly. FDR wheelchair pix would have hurt the Iraq War effort. See, we have always been fighting in Iraq.

Posted by Delicious Pundit | June 23, 2007 11:45 AM

Has Goldberg ever read a book -- or anything -- about FDR's life? The reason they didn't allow photos of him in a wheelchair was that it would have hurt his political career, which depended on his being seen in the public eye as a vigorous figure, i.e., not someone crippled below the waste.

But more to the point -- holy shit, that was a bizarre column. What's really strange is Jonah's inability to distinguish the two situations. Whatever the motivation, FDR was shielded from scrutiny because of a handicap. If it were the case that George W. Bush had conducted the war in Iraq superbly but also, say, walked with a pronounced limp, I would be amenable to the White House only releasing still photos of him rather than videos, or something like that. However, here in actual reality, the things that journos want to photograph are, in fact, pieces of evidence that his war policy is incredibly costly and/or simply a failure. Presumably, Jonah has no problem with journalists revealing facts that point up what he might see as FDR's policy failures...say, for example, this guy:

he president has also pushed aggressively and admirably for tax cuts. His judicial appointments have been solid (knock on wood). He's floated numerous good ideas - partial privatization of Social Security, faith-based programs, etc - and even followed through on some.

Weird, they even have the same name!

Posted by Daniel Munz | June 23, 2007 11:47 AM

One possible explanation is that FDR and/or Eleanor simply did not want to be photographed in a wheelchair, and there was no compelling reason for the press to not respect their wishes. If Bush or Edwards asks to be photographed from the left-side only because of a huge zit on the right cheek, I am not certain that the rights of the citizenry to full disclosure are adversely affected. Today's MSM, of course, would print the zit full front page closeup.

I presume the polio and disability were public knowledge, and I think that FDR overcoming the disability would have been a net political plus.

Posted by bob mcmanus | June 23, 2007 11:48 AM

There were more than 35,000 responses to blog entries by Jonah Goldberg derived from wingnut mass chain emails. Two point out that he was working with mass chain emails. Why? Because the bloggers almost unanimously agreed that — despite the embarassment — depicting poopypants as a mental cripple would be uncivil. The few dissenting bloggers from that consensus were routinely blocked or deliberately delinked by the senior bloggers so as to shield Goldberg from embarrassment and the public from its "right to know."

Posted by Ottoe | June 23, 2007 11:50 AM

Below the waist, that is. Something about this blog...

Posted by Daniel Munz | June 23, 2007 11:50 AM

If public knowledge of FDR's paralysis really would've been so bad for the war effort, why didn't Germany or Japan make an issue of it? Surely their ambassadors, who'd been around him for six years before the war, knew something wasn't entirely cricket with FDR's mobility. Right?

Posted by southpaw | June 23, 2007 11:51 AM

I had a black law professor who once said that using the word cripple was like using the "n" word.

Reporters didn't mention FDR's dalliances either. That had nothing to do with the war effort. There was just a different ethic.

Posted by Rich | June 23, 2007 11:51 AM

So, don't anyone talk about Abu Ghraib, soldiers lacking armor, acts of terrorism increasing in Iraq, etc. Our troops don't know about those things, and if we tell them it will hurt their delicate feelings.

Posted by Notorious P.A.T. | June 23, 2007 11:53 AM

It's a good analogy, if you see it the right way... Bush is retarded like FDR was crippled, but no one is allowed to point it out because it would hurt his political career AND the war effort.

Posted by grytpype | June 23, 2007 11:56 AM

That's a 2004 Goldberg piece. Are you trawling his past for idiocies?

Posted by otto | June 23, 2007 12:03 PM

As one old enough to remember Roosevelt quite well I believe we loved him for reasons that had nothing to do with his infirmity. We loved him for his intelligence, his ability to touch and engage our better natures, and his sincere efforts to better our lives. Roosevelt was not elected for his athletic abilities; he was elected to mend the damage done by the previous adminstration.

As for Goldberg, considering his maternal ancestry
and how he must have been brought up at home, nothing he does or says should surprise anyone.

Posted by Figaro | June 23, 2007 12:12 PM

Rich,

Fair enough so far as it goes, but is the plural 'dalliances' right? I thought there was Lucy Mercer with whom FDR was involved for years--a rather different story than Monica Lewinsky or Donna Rice (not that I am saynig Clinton should have been hounded because of his dalliance...).

Posted by J | June 23, 2007 12:14 PM

Kudos to grytpype for giving us the Quote of the Day. That is a brilliant one line review of Goldberg's article!

We can all agree on these issues, just with different perspectives.

Posted by Fabius Maximus | June 23, 2007 12:15 PM

Roosevelt had as bitter a political opposition as ever existed, and they didn't bring up his handicap. Why? Because it was common knowledge, that's why. One more thing. Roosevelt wasn't always hopping in and out of a damn helicopter, source of 99.9 percent of Presidential photo ops since Reagan.

Posted by JMG | June 23, 2007 12:16 PM

So..the Press shouldn't show any footage of Commander Cookoo Bananas because it would show him to be intellectually challenged?

Posted by jillian | June 23, 2007 12:30 PM

The Washington Monthly's Charles Peters has also been on a long one man crusade to prove that FDR's condition was common knowledge while he was president. To quote just one of his many Tilting at Windmills column where he addresses this issue:

What I remember is that everyone knew he couldn't walk unaided. Although he was not photographed in a wheelchair, he was also not shown walking or even standing without the assistance of an aide's arm, or something else, like a cane or a railing.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n6_v30/ai_20789481

Posted by Son of a bad man | June 23, 2007 12:47 PM

If you're in a fight, the best possible poblicity is false info that you're weak.
Poor old crippled FDR, who needs to have aides stand him up straight, leading a nation of shopkeepers--how could he stand up against the martial glory of the Aryan Nation?

If you're going to draw out insurgents, the best technique is to appear bumbling and stupid when you aren't. The Bush Administration should have been playing up the dissent rather than playing it down,

Unless, of course, you really are bumbling and stupid. Then it doesn't work.

Posted by pbg | June 23, 2007 12:50 PM

My mother, who's just shy of 80 and grew up during the Depression, says that Roosevelt's polio was common knowledge, but not the extent to which he was genuinely disabled by it. Press coverage and general atmosphere gave her (she says) and (as nearly as she and Dad both recalled) most folks the sense that it was much milder impairment than it actually was.

The one who really got a wash on media coverage of his personal life was JFK. His affairs were very common knowledge among the press, but not to the public at large.

Posted by Bruce Baugh | June 23, 2007 12:55 PM

Reporters didn't mention FDR's dalliances either. That had nothing to do with the war effort. There was just a different ethic.

Nor JFK's, either. What a concept- that you could be a public figure and still be entitled to a private life.

Posted by ronin | June 23, 2007 12:59 PM

My dad told me much the same as Baugh's mom: everyone knew FDR had polio, but in nearly all of his public appearances he used leg braces and "walked" with aides' support—swung his legs from the hips, really. He transferred from a wheelchair to "walking" when in the public eye.

I didn't know until last year that he needed to wear a diaper. More MSM cover-up.

Posted by Andrew J. Lazarus | June 23, 2007 1:02 PM

I think what Jonah is trying to say is "the Librul press hid Roosevelt's physical handicap, why aren't they hiding Bush's mental handicap"?

Posted by OxyCon | June 23, 2007 1:03 PM

My mother, who's just shy of 80 and grew up during the Depression, says that Roosevelt's polio was common knowledge, but not the extent to which he was genuinely disabled by it.

Baugh and Lazarus are correct -- the polio itself was known, but the average guy on the street didn't realize how bad it was. A surprising number of photos of FDR show him standing, always either braced against something or with someone right at his side.

Huh -- the new FDR bio I'm reading doesn't mention the diaper yet. I feel cheated.

Posted by Anderson | June 23, 2007 1:07 PM

Yeah, and the liberal media are still trying to blame Herbert Hoover for the Depression when everyone knows it was caused by Bill Clinton.

Posted by El Cid | June 23, 2007 1:12 PM

This discussion is all very cute, I think. Only(?) Jonah G. could be such an ass and be published by the likes of the L.A. Times. (Oh the times we're living in/through!)

And finally, let's not forget that polio, and it's effects were a common fact of life through the 1950's. Everyone knew someone who had had polio (my own twin first cousins, now 57 years old, for example.) Hardly notable, and how gauche to draw undue attention to it.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the hell out of these here blogs, but it's always a little chilling to follow the argumentations of the generations put through school with supposedly valid notions of deconstructing the past and what that might signify.

Posted by JohnsonFamily | June 23, 2007 1:15 PM

So let me get this straight....Jonah Goldberg is arguing that FDR's wheelchair-bound condition is functionally equivalent to the criminal abuses at Abu Ghraib?

And since the press didn't depict the former, they shouldn't depict the latter?

The point of publishing photos of Abu Ghraib is that they document the story. They are the story. FDR's condition was (a) not a criminal violation of international law nor (b) relevant to WWII, the Depression, etc.

Posted by Imelda | June 23, 2007 1:16 PM

The main reason Roosevelt was never photographed in a wheelchair is that he never appeared before reporters in a wheelchair. All of his public appearances were carefully stage managed to avoid focusing on his paralysis. For example, when they opened the Fort Peck Dam the stage they built was an enormous ramp. They actually drove him onto the stage in a convertible, tilted a microphone into the car for his remarks, and then drove him off stage and away. When he campaigned from a train, they would stand him at the back of the train with locked leg braces and a lectern for him to hang onto. He would ride into town this way, make his speech, and ride out of town while hanging on to the lectern and waving to the crowd. At other events he would usually be on stage and in position when the curtains opened and stay there till the curtains were closed.

The most elaborate deception was at the 1932 Democratic Convention. This was his comeback moment after polio and there were some who questioned his health. To make his acceptance speech after the nomination vote, he appeared to walk across the convention floor and climb the stairs onto the stage. He managed this with the leg braces, a cane, and by hanging onto the arm of one of his sons (James, I think).

Hugh Gregory Gallagher's 1985 book "FDR"s Splendid Deception" details the story and shows the two pictures. It is well worth the time to read.

Posted by John McKay | June 23, 2007 1:19 PM

Please, Matt, put down the pipe. I know you dispute this argument, but Pantload is the crack rock for prog blogs--a fast, cheap high that will kill your soul and rot your mind. Atrios is right; Jonah and his positions are worthy of nothing more than ridicule--and after his Katrina comments, what he really deserves is contempt, shunning, maybe a flaming bag of shit on his doorstep.

The way you continually, more-or-less politely refute his specific arguments has the net effect of validating Jonah as an *arguer*. This is the last thing he deserves. Without his mom, he's the night manager at Price Chopper boring everyone with angry regurgitations of what he heard on right wing radio that day. That someone who is so profoundly stupid he makes Tucker Carlson look like Bill Buckley *actually works for the National Review* speaks volumes about the degeneration of the conservative movement.

But what does it say that so many of the mainstream left's best and brightest continue using Queensbury rules to engage a Z-list mind nepotized into an A-list job?

In short: If you feel compelled to swat down one of his arguments, couldn't you at least throw in some deservedly brutal ad hominem attacks designed to delegitimize Jonah as an opponent? "DoughBob must have been sucking his mother's dick again during history class, because last I knew, FDR was elected almost 10 years before the US entered WW2. But what else can you expect from the Doug Feith of punditry?" See how easy that is?

Sorry. I'm just missing Steve Gilliard a lot right now.

Posted by Cole Moore Odell | June 23, 2007 1:20 PM

"despite the huge news value" -- what's the news value there? first, as many have pointed out, people know about his polio. second, it wasn't simply a matter of not wanting people to know he was crippled. Part of his strategy for developing a sense of optimism in Depression-era US was to show that he was overcoming this obstacle. This involves not using his wheelchair when in public. But also involves people KNOWING he had polio. He was not faking vigor--walking to trick people into thinking he was vigorous. He was enduring hardship to actually live vigorously. Finally, and most importantly, the news value in a presidency is in the personal and policy choices made, and their ramifications. Showing a president succumbing to pain or weakness due to illness is only newsworthy if it impacts the presidency. I suppose pictures of the president displaying his non-presidential persona ARE newsworthy when it turns out that the guy is all image and no substance.

Posted by HermanNewticks | June 23, 2007 1:31 PM

Seems to me former Senetor and former Presidental candidate Bob Dole received the same deferential treatment from the media regarding his handicap.

Sen Dole hand a withered arm, a result of wounds received in WWII. For reasons unexplained, the media always presented photos of the good Senator as strong and manly, somehow hiding his deformed arm.

Perhaps this deferential treatment was a result of the Republian party being embarassed that Sen Dole was actually a combat vet - as opposed to someone like, say Pres Regean, who only acted like one?

Posted by RonCharest | June 23, 2007 1:37 PM

Everyone at the time knew people with polio. They were pretty much everywhere. Some walked with braces, some used canes or crutches. Some were stay at home only, some worked in offices and factories.

Back in the mid 1970's even I knew a couple of people with polio. One was a young man who worked as a clerk in a grocery store and the other was the mother of a girl I dated whose left arm was pretty much useless due to polio. These conditions did not define who they were and for the most part no one paid any particular notice to their condition.

Back in Roosevelts day everyone knew that polio hit randomly and no one was safe from risk. Those it did not kill in a particularly viscious and cruel manner it left maimed.

So it may just be part of human nature to accept without comment conditions that could just as easily have happened to you. There is old saying that sums this up best:"There but for the grace of God go I"

Posted by ken | June 23, 2007 1:44 PM

The solution is simple - stop photographing Bush above the neck.

Posted by SuzA | June 23, 2007 1:52 PM

People were as aware of FDR's condition then as people are aware of Dick Cheney's ongoing heart problems now.

I would offer to buy Jonah a book on the subject of his next big timely expose if I thought he would read it.

Posted by Dom Telay | June 23, 2007 1:55 PM

Jonah can't read! FDR was crippled below the waist; Jonah is crippled above the neck!

Posted by Terrier | June 23, 2007 1:58 PM

So Goldberg supported the hounding of Clinton for a sexual indiscretion. That sort of privacy be damned but loves the idea of keeping the fact that a president can't walk from the public.

Does this seem a little hypocritical to anyone?

Posted by esther | June 23, 2007 1:59 PM

FDR made speeches for the anti-polio March of Dimes, which is why he's now on the dime. That he'd been hurt by polio was common knowledge, although the full extent of his disability may not have been. The public admired his efforts to carry on as if he wasn't crippled.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 23, 2007 2:53 PM

Well, at least Mr. Goldbergs' mother didn't claim to have had an affair with Roosevelt.

Posted by SLC | June 23, 2007 3:02 PM

My great-grandfather and his Italian immigrant friends saved the picture of Mussolini skiing bare-chested, and they would hold it up saying "You think that cripple-la sonofabitch Roosevelt could do this?". This was in the mid-30s.

Posted by Bear | June 23, 2007 3:08 PM

I wonder how Jonah will respond to this debunking . . . probably something along the lines of "Matthew Yglesias has an interesting point, re: the pre-war years of the Roosevelt presidency, that I perhaps should have considered when writing my original column. Still, I feel my main point stands on its own."

Posted by Fishbone McGonigle | June 23, 2007 3:41 PM

When I was a very little girl,in the late 1950's,I wore braces on my legs(to correct some twisted leg muscles,the braces were only on til I was 3). There is not one picture of me with the braces. Why? Because it was considered a "defect",and in those days(and earlier)it wasn't necessarily shameful,but it also wasn't something people wanted attention drawn to. That's just really it in a nutshell,it was about appearences. It's silly and really backwards,but there it is.

Jonah needs to leave the suburbs,all these pundit jackasses do. What a nitwit.

Posted by anangryoldbroad | June 23, 2007 4:51 PM

The press of the time did not show FDR in a wheelchair for the same reason they did not write about JFK's extramarital affairs. It wasn't done. The president's were allowed privacy.

Posted by DonB | June 23, 2007 4:57 PM

As other commenters here have mentioned, when Roosevelt publicly "walked" the event was carefully stage-managed. I've read that he hated actual wheelchairs and refused to use one. He insisted on using a regular chair with wheels attached. I think I've also read that he never let himself be photographed in one except when he was at Warm Springs, Georgia, the treatment center for children with polio where he went for vacations and therapy. And he never used one in public, according to the historian William Manchester, except when visiting wounded servicemen in the hospital.

My dad's stepbrother was lamed in one leg by polio in the 30's. However, he could walk fairly easily with a brace. Evidently my dad--like many Americans--assumed that FDR's condition was similar, but affecting both legs. He saw he president at the Teheran conference during WWII, and was astounded to find that he was really crippled.

Posted by Year of the Rat | June 23, 2007 5:14 PM

This was just something that the press did back then. Both JFK and Jackie smoked like chimneys--yet the press never showed them with a cigarette in hand.

Posted by Soft in the Head | June 23, 2007 5:49 PM

About Goldberg's annoyance at Ernie Pyle: Yes, Pyle did "agitate" for higher pay for soldiers, those serving in combat, that is. And, a few months after that particular column was published, Congress passed a bill that did raise combat soldiers' pay. Luckily, those America-hating pols didn't have to face the patriotic wrath of Fightin' Jonah G!

Posted by Year of the Rat | June 23, 2007 5:58 PM

you know, it's simply amazing how just being the pudgy, ignorant, and closeted gay son of a notorious Nixon administration operative gives Jonah Goldberg a certain cachet amongst the conservatives, who managed to get the Los Angeles Times to fire long-time liberal columnist Robert Sheer on a dime in order to accommodate him.

Posted by Donald from Hawaii | June 23, 2007 6:23 PM

Now that's what I'm talking about!

Posted by Cole Moore Odell | June 23, 2007 6:36 PM

J,

If being the POTUS can't get a guy multiple chicks, something is terribly wrong.

Posted by Rich | June 23, 2007 6:41 PM

Soft in the Head,

I remember as a naive teenager being startled by a photo of a very pregnant Jackie taking a break on the campaign trail; she seemed to be holding a cigarette. After the election I saw some candid footage of Jack and Jackie lounging at a banquet table, chatting. Jack was smoking a cigar. Jackie was holding a cigarette, although it happened to be out of sight until she suddenly tapped off the ash. I could hardly believe my eyes. Yes, Jackie Kennedy did smoke! The footage sometimes turns up on Kennedy documentaries, but with Jackie's cigarette edited out.

Posted by Year of the Rat | June 23, 2007 7:32 PM

Has Goldberg ever read a book---

No. This is the only response necessary for anything he writes.

Seems to me former Senetor and former Presidental candidate Bob Dole received the same deferential treatment from the media regarding his handicap.

Wolf Blitzer didn't ask for 'hands up' for his inane ask-the-group questions when moderating the GOP debate, given that John McCain can't raise his arms above shoulder-height without severe pain. I actually think that was appropriate, even if the whole 'anyone? anyone?' format is dumb.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 23, 2007 8:08 PM

FDR in a wheelchair is compared to Abu Ghraib. Jonah Goldberg is truly disgusting person.

Posted by pgl | June 23, 2007 9:07 PM

"If it were the case that George W. Bush had conducted the war in Iraq superbly but also, say, walked with a pronounced limp..."

Careful - Are you trying to say that your main opposition to the invasion of Iraq is that the USA didn't win decisively enough?

It was a war crime either way. It was based on lies.

Posted by VictorLaszlo | June 23, 2007 9:08 PM

I just hate it when people don't know history. Numberous biographies of FDR detail this as does the book, Polio. FDR's disability was well known. It was an issue when he ran for governor of New York, for example. The opposition made a veiled insinuation that FDR was not physically up to the job. Then, when FDR visited more areas of New York than his opponent in less time, he said, more or less, that his travels more than answered any insinuation. Furthermore, anyone know why FDR is on the dime coin? BECAUSE HE FOUNDED THE MARCH OF DIMES! The March of Dimes was the organization that defeated polio! He founded it because, duh, he had polio.

Further, on a more personal note, my father, who is 78, told me that when FDR came to the opening of the Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, in 1935 (or 1934), FDR remarked on how foresighted the city was in installing ramps, instead of stairs, as it afforded someone like him (one who uses a wheelchair) easy access. The speech was reported in the Kansas City Star the next day. You can look in up.

Posted by mike | June 23, 2007 10:11 PM

Sheesh, all of y'all are right. Everyone knew he had polio, everyone knew that he used wheelchairs and canes and braces, few realized that he was profoundly crippled and was carried up the stairs for the speech at the Democratic convention in a fireman carry by an attendant.

Didn't anybody see the movie Warm Springs, or were y'all too busy blogging?

Posted by BruceMcF | June 23, 2007 11:30 PM

Well, that is such a weighty subject, Jonah, and thank you for bringing it up. I can see why you're pondering it--instead of, say, enlisting in the military to fight your favorite war in Iraq.

Posted by Stupified | June 24, 2007 12:08 PM

Jonah is even fatter than Michael Moore and his mother smells of elderberry wine. Why won't the press mention these things?

Posted by ec1009 | June 24, 2007 1:58 PM

Jonah is even fatter than Michael Moore and his mother smells of elderberry wine. Why won't the press mention these things?

Posted by ec1009 | June 24, 2007 1:59 PM

Jean Edward Smith reports that FDR's bowel & bladder (& sexual) functions were normal, at least when he was running for governor in 1928.

Lazarus, where'd you get the diaper bit?

Posted by Anderson | June 24, 2007 2:48 PM

Poor Mr. Goldberg is an intellectual cripple. Does this mean that we can all agree to not read his chickenhawk writings, as they show what a complete moron he is???

Posted by harriett | June 24, 2007 3:42 PM

I don't know that Jonas is entirely wrong about the press corps shielding presidents. Certainly they didn't make much of Eisenhower's long term romance with Kate Summersby and recently have shielded the public from knowing about George's mental retardation in so far as that was possible.They even
concealed his secret service nickname; "shortbus".

Posted by Petermen | June 26, 2007 3:56 PM