Which former president, living or dead, would you like to see Obama interact with?

I'd choose Theodore Roosevelt. I'm reading another book about him and I think he and Obama would get along like gangbusters.

Which President would you like to see Obama with?

Lincoln also

So if we could bring him forward from the past, I think he would be thrilled to discover we had a Black president.

The Muslim comment came in a series of public letters between himself and Madison (I think) debating the Bill of Rights. Madison noted that the proposed First Amendment as written meant a Muslim could someday be elected president. Jefferson retorted that he looked forward to that day!

that came to my mind, too.

Hekate

Both were strict abolitionists in a time when it wasn't fashionable. John Q would be particularly pleased with Obama, I think.

Madison was one of the writers of the Constitution

Maybe Madison to help him figure a way to explain to the stupid out there how the Constitution works

Because Mitch, Antonin and all the tea-baggers have no idea

He after all signed the emancipation Declaration which
brought forward freedom for the enslaved.

and Lincoln is Barack Obama's favorite President,
so it would be nice for him to meet the person
that he most admires.

Duirng the great Depression, many states forbid the practice of foreclosure during the Great Depression.

And FDR would really read Obama the riot act about his Wall Street Presidency.

Andrew Jackson would probably shoot him. Jackson was a murderous, genocidal nutball.

So, perhaps Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter or Lyndon Johnson. With Truman and Johnson's salty language while Carter coyly looks on, it would be fascinating to be a fly on the wall in that room.

So was every President till you come quite a ways up into the 20th century.

I also feel that he was too timid in terms of pushing the rights of freedom when it came to Black people during that time. In fact, the Emancipation Proclamation didn't entirely free all the slaves right away. Black people were still held under the yoke of Jim Crow until the 1960's.

Also, he was more concerned about the preservation of the Union and less affected by how slavery affected society.

And you are correct about the other Presidents all the way to Bush. However, I think LBJ would be interesting because he was the one who began to push Civil Rights into full gear (i.e. Voting Rights Act of 1965, Civil Rights Act of 1964, his "Great Society", suggesting Thurgood Marshall for the SCOTUS). Harry S. Truman integrated the Armed Services, not FDR. Jimmy Carter simply because he's outspoken about a lot of things and will say what others in Washington, present or past, will not say.

If someone asked about First Ladies, then I'd say Eleanor Roosevelt. When asking the older folk in my family, they loved her treatment of Black people as well as her frankness regarding Civil Rights. They felt she was very kind and mourned her when she died.

from a different time, especially Lincoln considering the huge issue he dealt with ?

It's about how he'd be treated based on the fact that he is Black and the leader of America.

For example, Wilson felt that "Birth of A Nation"(1915) conveyed the truth about American history (i.e., the Klan presented as American heroes and also protectors of white womanhood).

Knowing how Wilson perceived Black people as being inferior and did nothing to stop the racial violence against persons of color in the United States, how do you think it would turn out between himself and Mr. Obama?

That's why history, instead of being simply treated as a linear enterprise, is rather fascinating when removing the layers and analyzing them through a variety of different lenses.

You did give me a lot to think about there.

Yes he started out as a supporter of recolonization, but he ended up a supporter of voting rights for ex slaves (at least partially). That is a huge shift and pretty admirable. People that run for president are almost by definition egomaniacs. It comes with the territory (do YOU believe you're the most qualified American to run the country?). People like that do not often change their views.

I think most Lincoln scholars do not buy the "Lincoln myth", but rather admire Lincoln's capacity to grow as an individual. This is certainly what Douglass admired about him.

Furthermore, I understand why people admire him. He was president during a challenging time in the state of the Union. He did what he could to keep America together when citizen battled against citizen in such a bloody and climactic war. The cost in war dead is staggering. Furthermore, its effects (including the ridiculousness of Confederate History Month) are still felt today.

However, I tend to apply several lenses to Lincoln's deeds and often think about them when weighing other important events in American history. The most important of those "lenses" is one of culture and race. Since I am of color, that is why I have a different take on Lincoln's deeds despite the fact that he and Frederick Douglass were considered "friends".

As an American, I believe he can be considered as being the man who fought to keep the Union intact despite being surrounded by rivals and enemies. For that, his administration should be viewed in terms of its governance and impact.

That is why Lincoln's legacy is still debated in a myriad of ways up until today. :)

Read one of the Best Sellers at Amazon " The Six Black Presidents, Black Blood, White Masks."

I had to wait for months to finally get a used copy of it.

The book is an eye opener.

Give'em Hell Harry who in my opinion is one of the best examples of a true democrat.

Harry Truman's feistiness is something Mr. Obama rather lacks. One hopes it would rub off.

James Madison is also a good choice, although Madison's brilliance had faded a little by the time he became President. But if Mr. Obama could meet a James Madison at about the same age as himself, that would be quite interesting.

FDR is also a fine choice. One is certain FDR would have found a way to convince President of whatever the old man wanted him to believe; of all the nation's Presidents, Franklin Roosevelt was surely the best salesman.

had a lot to do with the way voters perceived citizenship from those years forward.

George Wallace would rise on a segregationist wave but Carter, a few years later, vanquished that model. What Carter did with his foundation atop and the alignment of JFK King RFK and LBJ with social change significantly changed how suddenly differently many voters came to see citizenship.

This has been a huge change in U.S. society in the last few generations.

Some of the men and women who marched in Selma and Birmingham may not have been great presidents but they have the distinction of being great people, great citizens. My first choice would be for them to have lived long enough to know that the coarse indignities, which they suffered and endured nobly and bravely, helped cut the path through the wilderness which later was traveled by Barack Obama en route to being elected President of the United States.

The platform Roosevelt ran on in 1912 was very much in sync with liberal values of today:

The 1912 Progressive platform supported measures including a minimum wage, workers' compensation, and women's suffrage. It advocated "a contract with the people," with government acting to improve social and economic conditions. http://answers.encyclopedia.com/question/bull-moose-party-1912-platform-609511.html

The GOP hated him back then. He was a true reformer for the government, business and the environment. He'd want Obama to be more aggressive but I think they would have a bully conversation followed by basketball and mountain-climbing!

And a true conservationist, not just an idiot hunter with no knowledge or respect for animals like there is today.

He had a mystical respect for animals and the Earth. I'm reading Theodore Roosevelt: Wilderness Warrior right now and it's amazing how much of the country's natural beauty he saved for future generations.

I want to read that book too!

down his throat.

I'm currently reading a bio of him, and I got to the infamous part about "Birth of a Nation". Turns out there is absolutely no proof for the "official" account. 62 years later, the last person living who was in the room with Wilson when he saw the movie said he didn't seem to pay much attention and left immediately after without even saying a word to the movie's producers.

I'm not saying Wilson was LBJ, but I think his racism has been grossly overstated.

I really don't think his racism CAN be overstated. I don't know what bio you're reading, but forgive me if it seems to me like it must be one written in a deliberately sympathetic, minimizing manner. We're talking about the man who, upon taking office, fired practically every black federal employee and forcibly segregated our Navy. He inserted racism into the federal government in ways that had not been there before, segregating DC public transit and banning interracial marriage in DC. He deliberately appointed racists to federal positions, who then introduced segregation to THEIR departments. He fully believed that black citizens were inherently "inferior", and said so in his OWN words--recorded for all time. This is a man who believed that racist white southerners were the best citizens, and who feared what the South would become when it was ruled by "an inferior race". He was a man who both admired and defended the KKK--in his own writings.

"Birth of a Nation" aside, there is plenty about Wilson that screams racism. You should shelve your biography and pick up Wilson's OWN book, "A History of the American People". It's in several volumes--be warned, it takes a long time to read, and his writing can be rather dry. Even still, if you are't puking in disgust by the time you finish it, I'll eat my shoes. Regardless of what outside accounts can be "proven" or not, it's hard to argue about "proof" when you're reading the man's own words. We read his books for class, and he slobbers praise all over the KKK like Glenn Beck slobbers praise on the Teabaggers--and this was during a time period when the KKK was still hunting down black people, hanging them in trees, and setting them on fire! And that's not the only bigotry you'll find. I literally felt sick to my stomach by the time I finished it.

He wasn't entirely evil. No person ever is. He did good things, and some of his views were progressive for his time period--particular some of his economic policies and ideas about foreign relations. But trying to pretend that he was anything other than a southern white male and disgustingly racist to the core is, in my opinion, like trying to pretend that a horse turd is an apple--and worse, is rather insulting, in that it trivializes what real, living, breathing black human beings were forced to endure as a result of actions instigated by Wilson during his Presidency.

You and I agree on most things, I think, but this is one that, if you maintain your current stance, we'll have to vigorously disagree on. Wilson is one of the Democratic Presidents that I (and many others) will always feel incredible shame about.

And perhaps I am wrong about his level of racism--although I'm sure it was comparatively mild compared to the fire and brimstone of the KKK in those days.

But I don't feel shame about him at all. Do I wish he had been more forward-thinking on civil rights? Absolutely. But he was one of the most--if not THE most--progressive Presidents of his time and remains one of the country's greatest diplomats. In fact, if it had not been for FDR he'd probably be THE greatest.

E: Plus, I'm near the end of the Wilson one...I don't want to start a new one, because my next book's the H.W. Brands book about FDR--"Traitor to his Class".

He could give Obama a fast course in "smackin' 'em up side the head." LBJ knew how to get things done.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/portrait/wp_african.html">Wilson: A Portrait

FYI

Obama's favorite by a mile.

He'd teach Obama how to handle the Senate while sitting in the big chair.

Let Old Hickory see what the party he founded wrought in the future.

I see some sparks flying.

I think he would take issue with Obama's sometimes lack of aggressiveness but I don't think he would mind him being biracial.

Jackson would probably need to be reminded that we don't hold duels anymore.

Obama sitting in the audience at W's trial for treason against the US.

what Johnson did especially if he gets Wall Street Banking Reform. And Obama is doing it without the majorities in either the house or senate that LBJ enjoyed.

What are you, ON DRUGS?!

Millard, that is: the man who signed the Fugitive Slave Act into law, and later ran for president on the anti-immigrant, anti-just-about-everything Know Nothing ticket meeting the educated, intellectual son of a Kenyan! We could sell tickets and retire the national debt.

FDR

Though a "battle of intellects" between Obama & Jimmy Carter would be worth watching...

Otherwise, it's kinda creepy.

What other living president should he be listening to? (He's already listened to far too much of the Clinton/DLC stuff, and even Clinton himself is now admitting that the DLC economic team fucked up, under his administration)

Teddy would tell him how to smack down the robber barons, and then FDR could tell him how to reinstate the reforms that should have kept those scumbag pieces of shit under control in the first place (and did so until they were systematically destroyed by the Bush Crime Family AND the DLC, since 1981)

I'd rather see him interact with Ghandi, myself.

....really no need to put that in the question

criticism from the GOP, including being called a socialist, but he had no problems letting the republicans, or anyone else, know what he thought of them.
In 1948, Truman was making a speech and someone yelled, 'Give 'en hell, Harry!" Truman replied,"I don't give 'em hell - I just tell the truth about 'em and they THINK it's hell!"

m

They should have a loooooong talk about the Middle East.