Word: roosevelts
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Each successive scene tells the story of another assassin in a similar way. The assassins' stories are fictitiously intertwined: Charles Guiteau, who eventually assassinated James Garfield; Leon Czolgosz, who killed William McKinley; Guiseppe Zangara, who attempted to assassinate Franklin D. Roosevelt; would-be Gerald Ford assassins Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme and Sara Jane Moore; Sam Byck, who plotted to kill Nixon; and John Hinckley, who shot Ronald Reagan. The time gap separating each of the assassinations (or attempted assassinations) is given no heed: placing these disparate events side by side allows them to interact in a kind of fantastic sphere that...
...myself made the first argument in a column last June. On reflection, however, the whole debate seems to miss the point. The very question of what Roosevelt would have wanted makes no sense. It depends on which Roosevelt. If the real Roosevelt, President of the United States, 1933-45, the answer is obvious: He would not--he did not--want his "splendid deception" undone...
...Roosevelt we mean Roosevelt today, i.e., a Roosevelt who had absorbed all the self-revelatory cultural conventions of our time, well then, of course he would bare everything. He would go on Oprah, indeed not just in a wheelchair but hand in hand with Lucy Mercer...
...vote for reticence. The current statue--F.D.R. in his wooden kitchen chair with casters, a great cape hiding the tiny wheels from all but the most observant visitor--captures perfectly Roosevelt's cloaking of his disability. At a time when our politicians are "stricken with self-pity and given to sniveling" (to quote Mary McGrory), what a balm is Roosevelt's attitude of defiant and dignified denial...
Such is the style of the '90s. Fine. But who dares argue that it can match Roosevelt's for nobility? It is not just that we have no right to impose our sensibility on Roosevelt. We should be ashamed...