Abraham Fitzgerald Delano Obama

Every president seeks to wrap himself in the achievements of his iconic predecessors. President Barack Obama is no exception - except that his supporters started the Abraham Lincoln story even before he won the election. He went so far with this myth as to use the Lincoln Bible for the swearing-in ceremony.

The stark difference between the two was that at age 18, the self-taught Lincoln could read, write and cipher while a boatman on the Ohio River, while Barack was leading a sheltered life shooting baskets in Honolulu wending his way east toward Harvard Law School, which was, as one Harvard spokesman said, "very generous" with financial aid.

On the other hand, Lincoln couldn't even afford to "read law" for a lawyer or clerk for a judge, so he had to borrow law books to prepare for a 25-year practice of "nuts and bolts" law. As historian Richard Brookhiser noted, "Lincoln came into his crises very well-prepared ... Obama hadn't been challenged the same way prior to his election."

I recall reading comments from some Obama acolytes early in his senatorial career that Obama was about to be the "John Fitzgerald Kennedy for our times." That illusion didn't have any legs, given the fact that JFK was a genuine war hero, a war hawk and an advocate of tax reduction. Obama is the polar opposite. What probably got this myth started in Democratic circles is that both men were considered to be exciting, inspirational Democratic candidates, and both fit the "hunk" category, which did appeal to female voters.

It was just a question of time, as the financial crisis kept unfolding, that the comparisons with Franklin Delano Roosevelt would gain currency and be the final verdict of most political analysts. After all, both FDR and Obama advocated big government, as one would expect from Social Democrats. While it can be argued the FDR saved capitalism (It was more likely, World War II) he did redirect American eyes from city, county and state buildings and Main Street toward the beltway in Washington, D.C. For the first time, Americans expected the federal government to play a role in social welfare. (The presidency as we know it today begins with Roosevelt.) Obama has gone one up on FDR when he proclaimed that "Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling the economy - where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs ..."

FDR's New Deal playbook is now in Obama's hands - public works employment, nationalized health care, tax increases, bailouts, re-regulation and more contemporary stuff suited to these times, such as global warming and energy independence.

What historians now admit is the New Deal did not bring about recovery. In fact it prolonged the Great Depression. In 1931, the unemployment rate was 17.4 percent. Seven years later it was still the same in spite of a gazillion federal programs. At no point during the 1930s did unemployment go below 14 percent. Even during the buildup to World War II, unemployment was 9.9 percent.

Many economists say Roosevelt's problem was that he abandoned Keynesian economics too soon - that he didn't throw enough money at the economy! Obama seems to be of that school.

But it would be wise for Obama to follow one bit of advice from FDR: "Do something. And when you have done that something, if it works do it some more. And if it does not work, then do something else." At least you can say FDR kept trying different programs, until the war. FDR used a convoluted metaphor in a radio address in 1943 to say that "Doctor New Deal" didn't work, but that "Doctor Win the War" would "take care of this fellow" and put the "patient back on his feet." Not that Roosevelt wanted a war, but you should make the most out of a crisis. As he said, "the patient isn't wholly well yet, and he won't be until he wins the war."

Where both Obama and FDR are eerily similar is as first-class rhetoricians. Both are facile - geniuses at timing and stagecraft - and delivering the message to the average voter. Obama has that real sense for oratory, too. Let's face it. We expect our politicians to be performance artists first and foremost. We'll worry about the important stuff later.

Obama would be well served to wrap himself up in the FDR myth. Sixty some odd years after his death, and this president is still being lionized. Even way back in 1963, President Kennedy told us, "The only two dates that most people remember where they were when they heard the news, were Pearl Harbor and the death of Franklin Roosevelt." (Jump forward a generation and add JFK to the list.)

Celebrity worship and mythology have become American as apple pie. Joseph Campbell, mythologist, lecturer and writer was the subject of one of the most impressive and interesting interviews ever recorded - a six-part, six-hour PBS special in 1986 called "The Power of Myth." Campbell posited convincingly that we Americans need myths to survive, just as we need oxygen to breathe. What all of us - Democrats, Republicans and others - wish, is for Obama's performance to rise to the level of, or exceed the myth.

At least oxygen - the reality - is a given.